Whiteout
by RocketVeteran
Summary: When Team Galactic attacks Sinnoh's lakes, Dawn's attempt at playing heroine goes horribly wrong and she ends up losing more than just a Pokémon battle. Platinum-verse, in-game, Dawn/Barry/Lucas.
1. Trust

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This story is set during the course of _**Pokémon Platinum**_. For the sake of being 'canon', characters are referred to by their **'official' names**, but due to the crossover with the anime, I think it's important to clarify that Dawn is the **female player character** from _Platinum_, **not** anime Dawn. I'm mentioning that in case any questions of characterisation come up. Similarly, Barry is the 'rival' character from Platinum, **not **anime Barry. _Technically his name should be Pearl, but really, how many guys do you know named Pearl? _

Certain events in this story might not be quite as familiar if you haven't played _Platinum_, but it should still make sense. You might struggle if you don't at least know the basic storyline of D/P/Pt, though. This should be fairly **short**, probably just a few chapters (none of which will be overly long), and quite **different** compared to what actually happens in the games. There's a **twist**, let's put it that way. Please stick around for the ride, and do let me know if you're reading, even if you don't want to leave a proper review. Having said that, I **welcome** constructive criticism and I reply to **all** reviews!

* * *

**ONE**

It wasn't that she didn't trust him. She just didn't think it was safe for either of them to go alone.

It was different for Lucas. He would be close to his home-town, close to his family, probably even accompanied by Professor Rowan himself – and who _wouldn't_ feel safe around that guy? On the other hand, Lake Acuity was far away, maybe far enough for Barry to get sidetracked before he got there. If Dawn was being honest, she would have confessed that she wasn't looking forward to the prospect of going anywhere near the vicinity of a bomb attack. But rather than admit to cowardice, she told herself that there was strength in numbers – _and in avoiding locations of recent explosions_, said the nervous voice in her head.

She was still shaking in the aftermath of the tremor that had rattled the bookshelves of the Canalave City library less than an hour ago. People had begun to return to their business already. The library had fallen silent again, save for the television which was still switched on, the news still focused on the bizarre incident that had just taken place near Pastoria City. The professor had told Dawn to go to that very place, to what _had been_ Lake Valor until the bomb had turned it into a messy, muddy crater. Dawn knew that Professor Rowan would never have asked her to go if he hadn't completely believed in her. She was grateful for his faith, but she was about to disobey him.

Throwing her bag onto her shoulder, Dawn made her way out of the library and onto the streets of Canalave City. She overheard a group of people talking excitedly – and fearfully – about what had happened at Lake Valor.

"But what if there's another attack? Where do you think they'll strike next?"

Dawn felt a twinge of guilt, but she quickly suppressed it. Why did _she _have to be the one who was sent to Lake Valor? In fact, if she thought about it, Professor Rowan and his sycophant Lucas – oh, she felt bad for even _thinking_ it after the number of times that Lucas had helped her out, but he did spend a lot of time following the professor around – had picked the easy option. Lake Verity was the closest out of the three lakes. _How nice for them._

_I'm not picking the second easiest option_, Dawn told herself. _Lake Acuity is miles away, and I'll never catch up to Barry. Unless..._ She took a Pokéball from her belt. "Noctowl!"The owl-like Pokémon appeared in the air with a hoot and immediately landed in front of its trainer. Standing over five feet tall, it was bigger than Dawn herself, and more than capable of carrying her on its back. "I need you to fly me to Eterna City," she said, "and then we'll go north, over Mount Coronet. Do you think you can manage it?"

Although Noctowl was her newest Pokémon, Dawn already knew that she could rely on it. She climbed onto its back and it took flight, stirring up a cloud of dust as it left the ground. When the vertigo had worn off and her stomach had settled, Dawn gazed down through the low-lying clouds. Sinnoh looked even better from the air than it did at ground-level. The meadows of Floaroma Town were like a patchwork quilt of colour, the windmills of the Valley Windworks standing out like large pins. That, Dawn remembered, was where she had first encountered Team Galactic. Taking over a rural wind-farm wasn't exactly the height of evildoing. After she'd helped to drive them away, Dawn had never imagined that she would be crossing paths with them again – over something much more serious. The shock-wave from the Lake Valor bomb was still resonating in her mind.

As they neared Eterna City, it was Team Galactic's relatively new building in the north of the town that served as a landmark, with its strange, spaceship-like rooftop. Noctowl landed on the very same street, outside the Pokémon Centre, and Dawn couldn't help but look back over her shoulder. The Galactic building looked quiet, maybe even deserted. Well, it was evening already. But something told Dawn that it was only deserted because Team Galactic's plans were taking place elsewhere, and that was an unsettling thought. Her mouth felt dry as she dragged herself into the comforting familiarity of the Pokémon Centre. There was no point in carrying on over the mountains now; amongst other things, it would soon be too dark to see.

*****

After an unsettled night of little sleep and a lot of worrying, Dawn got up shortly after first light. It didn't take her long to get ready to leave, but she stalled for a few minutes, thumbing through the numbers stored in her cellphone and wondering how far Barry and Lucas had travelled since yesterday afternoon. Lake Verity was weighing heavily on her mind. She had grown up not far from its shores. She and Barry, friends since childhood, had often raced each other there to play on its banks. When they had received their first Pokémon, the lakefront had been their battlefield. All charming memories – except for one.

That day, a day like any other, they had noisily rushed through the forest to find a stranger standing at the edge of the lake, speaking to – to whom? They'd thought that he was talking to himself, and an awkward silence had followed in which the two youngsters weren't sure whether it would have been cruel to laugh. When the strange man had turned to leave and his eyes had fallen upon Dawn and Barry, any traces of amusement had vanished from their faces. They'd never seen anyone look so stern – with the exception of Professor Rowan, maybe. They had been so transfixed – and slightly afraid – that they hadn't even realised they were standing in the stranger's way until he'd told them to move. Dawn had instantly felt a flush of embarrassment at the realisation that she'd been rudely staring at someone, but Barry had brushed it off.

"What a weirdo," he'd said with a semi-nervous laugh. Dawn had barely smiled, and that was just to keep her friend happy.

Neither of them had known it at the time, but they'd just come face to face with Team Galactic's leader. Since she'd learned this, Dawn had spent sleepless nights trying to remember what he'd been saying at Lake Verity that day. She could never remember anything except his name and his parting words, something addressed to 'the Pokémon of the lake'. That must have been the reason why Team Galactic had attacked Sinnoh's three major lakes. They were after the legendary lake guardians.

"Who goes around chasing after fairytales, anyway?" Dawn muttered to herself as she pulled her pink boots onto her feet

She resisted the urge to phone Lucas or Professor Rowan. Whatever had happened at Lake Verity would have already happened by now. Yes, Dawn was dying to know. She wasn't about to deny that she was curious. But she could hardly call now, when she was in the middle of ignoring what the professor had asked her to do. She put her phone away, picked up her bag and left the Pokémon Centre. As soon as she was outside, she released her Noctowl and greeted it with some food.

"I hope you're ready. We've got another long trip ahead of us."

This time, they were flying over unfamiliar territory, and Dawn silently noted that Sinnoh looked a lot less pretty now that she didn't know exactly where she was going. Mount Coronet was forebodingly high, so Noctowl simply kept close to its rugged sides, trying to fly at a constant level. Nevertheless, Dawn could feel the air getting colder as if they were ascending. White speckles began to appear on her Pokemon's feathers. At first, they were quick to melt. Then they began to linger. Before long, it seemed as though they were in the middle of a mild snowstorm. _We can't be far off now_. Dawn tried to look down, but all she could see was fog.

"It's no good! The weather's too bad! I can't see a thing down there!" Not to mention the fact that it was icy cold, so much so that Dawn was worried about losing the use of her muscles and tumbling straight off her Pokemon's back. The ice grazing her face was becoming painful. She knew that Noctowl, with its keen eyesight, would be able to see through any amount of mist, fog or snow, but they had already travelled a long distance. Although she knew that she could end up lost in the middle of nowhere, Dawn patted the back of Noctowl's head. "I think it's time we went down and took a rest," she said, almost having to shout over the wailing wind.

Noctowl hooted in agreement and began a gentle descent through the snow and the fog. The visibility was so bad that Dawn couldn't even see the ground approaching. Everything was white. She felt the landing before she saw it; Noctowl stumbled forward into the deep snow and Dawn fell from its back. The snow broke her fall; it must have been more than knee-deep, as she stood. She looked around, hoping to see something that might tell her where they had landed, but aside from a few snow-covered trees, there was nothing. She began to wish that she had gone to Lake Valor after all.

"Which way is north?" she asked desperately, brushing her coat clean as much as she could.

Flapping its wings to get rid of the snow on its feathers, Noctowl let out another hoot and began trudging off. It was obviously difficult for it to walk in such deep snow with its short legs, but Dawn realised what it was doing. Like all bird Pokémon, it had a natural sense of navigation. It was showing her the answer to her question. Dawn followed it for a short distance before she could no longer bear the sight of it fighting against the snow.

"Thanks, Noctowl. Return!" With her Pokémon back in the safety of its Pokéball, the young trainer found herself alone again in this white wilderness. To herself and the silence around her, she added, "I guess I'll just try to keep going in a straight line."

With the sparse trees as her only guidelines and an icy wind battering her from the side, Dawn slowly walked on with her head down, never looking up but occasionally glancing back over her shoulder in an attempt to see whether or not her footprints were swerving. It was difficult to tell. Thanks to the continuing snow, her footprints seemed to disappear almost as soon as she'd made them. _If I collapsed out here, nobody would know._ Despite that frightening thought, Dawn could feel her lack of sleep taking its toll. Had she been wearing just one more layer of clothing, she might have been tempted to find a sheltered place and take a nap. _And die of hypothermia_, she added silently. _This was such a bad idea. Why didn't I just do as I was told?_

Dawn suddenly felt disorientated. She'd hesitated to pull her hat down over her freezing forehead and she'd made the mistake of turning around on the spot to gaze at her surroundings. Now she couldn't even remember where she was going. She was about to release her Noctowl again, but as she considered just how easy it was to get lost in a place like this, she began to worry. Not about herself, but about her friend. Would Barry's Staraptor have brought him this far? Would he have even thought to use it as a navigator? It wasn't that she thought he was stupid. It was just that he could be so careless at times.

With a gripping sense of panic, Dawn broke into a run, yelling Barry's name and receiving nothing in reply, not even an echo. Tears welled up in her eyes and she stumbled on blindly. What was she supposed to do? If she sent Noctowl out to look for Barry, she could safely bet that she would be the one who would end up lost. On the other hand, if she reached Lake Acuity and Barry wasn't there...

"Somebody help me," she muttered, pausing to wipe her eyes with the heels of her gloved hands.

As she looked up, she gasped. In the distance, she could see a small log cabin. It was almost completely covered in snow, but its front door had been cleared and the lights were on. Thinking that her prayers had been answered, Dawn ran the rest of the distance and pounded heavily on the door. For what seemed like an age, there was no answer. Then, finally, the door was opened and Dawn found herself gazing up at a tall, heavyset man who was obviously dressed for the weather: his thick sweater made him look even bigger than he already was.

"Come in, come in," he said, opening the door fully and standing aside. "You must be freezing!" After banging the snow from her boots against the doorstep, Dawn gratefully stepped into the warmth of the little house. "You've found your way to our humble lodge," her host said with an equally warm smile. "Can I take your coat? We've got a fire going, so you'll be plenty warm enough in here."

"Thank you," Dawn said with a blush. She began to unwrap the white scarf from around her neck, but her nagging worry made her hesitate. She kept it on. "Is...is anyone else staying here?" she asked.

"Not at the moment, but don't you worry. Come through here and meet my wife." Beckoning to Dawn, the lodge owner disappeared through the door at the end of the short hallway. Glancing down at her own sodden boots, Dawn followed him. "We've got a guest, Linda."

"Oh, how nice!" A middle-aged woman sat in an armchair at the far side of the room, wrapped in a brown woollen blanket, an open book in her lap. She put it aside as Dawn entered the room. "Please come in and sit down. Will you be staying with us?"

"Actually, I really need to find my friend," Dawn said in a voice that was almost pleading. She didn't want to seem distrustful or ungrateful, so she perched herself on the edge of the nearest chair. If anything, the first thing she wanted to do was fall asleep in front of a roaring fire – but she couldn't, not now that she had started to worry about Barry.

"He isn't one of those Galactic people, is he?" Linda asked disapprovingly.

"Huh?" Dawn was so stunned by what the lady had just said, it took a while before she could reply properly. She adamantly shook her head. "No, he's definitely not one of them. But how do you know...?"

"They came through here not long ago," Linda's husband explained in his deep voice. Dawn almost jumped; she had forgotten that he was still standing in the doorway. "Can I get you a hot drink, chickie?"

"No, thank you. I'm sorry, but did you just say that you saw some members of Team Galactic?"

"I think that's who they were. The folks with the silly hair and the spacesuits, right? They were on their way to – "

"Never mind that, Malcolm!" Linda said impatiently, cutting him off with a wave of her hand. "This girl is looking for her friend!" She smiled at Dawn warmly. "What does he look like?"

"Well, he's...a bit taller than me," Dawn replied, gesturing with one hand as she spoke. "With blonde hair that sort of sticks up like this, and hazel eyes." She tried to remember what sort of clothes Barry usually wore, and was a little ashamed to realise that she couldn't even remember. "He talks really quickly. Oh, and he carries a brown satchel."

"That sounds like the young man who came in just this morning," Malcolm remarked. "Doesn't it, Linda?"

Dawn sat back in the chair and let out a sigh of relief. "But he didn't stay here?" She already knew the answer to that. Barry never spent more than a few minutes in one place if he could help it.

"Oh, no. He just came to ask for directions. Wanted to know where Lake Acuity was."

Although she was exhausted, Dawn knew that her brief rest stop was almost over. She was just glad that Barry had been sensible enough to stop and ask for help; now she felt guilty for doubting him. She shuffled to the edge of the chair again and adjusted her bag on her shoulder. "I'm looking for Lake Acuity, too."

"It's just up the hill from here," Linda replied. "It's a bit of a climb, mind you, and especially in this weather!"

Dawn glanced at the window. Sure enough, it was still snowing. Viewed from indoors, it was a mesmerising sight. "I need to find him," she said absent-mindedly.

So she'd been wrong, thinking Barry careless enough to get hopelessly lost or distracted by something irrelevant. She_ still _couldn't quite believe that he was going to take care of Team Galactic on his own. She knew that she should have more faith in him, but she told herself that it was better to be safe than sorry. _It's not that I don't trust him, _she told herself for the hundredth time, _I just..._

"I really should get going," she said, louder this time. She stood up. "Thanks for the help!"

"Are you sure you want to go up there?" Linda asked. "I'm not trying to scare you, but I've never liked the look of those Team Galactic people, and it looked as though they were heading in the same direction."

"I'll be fine." Dawn thought about the six Pokémon on her belt, safely concealed beneath her coat, and she smiled. "I've got protection."

Although the cold bit even deeper after that short taste of warmth, and although the road became steep, Dawn felt so much stronger now. It wasn't that she didn't trust Barry, but they were going to take down Team Galactic together.


	2. Uxie's Glance

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **We're starting now. For real. _In other words, this is the chapter where things start to happen._ Also, there's a bit of anime/game character overlap in this chapter. Because female-player-character Dawn arguably has no character of her own, I've thrown in a couple of things that are from anime Dawn.

* * *

**TWO**

Dawn knew that she was getting close, not because any signposts told her so, and not because she had a great sense of direction. She knew because she began to see signs of life, and of people who were up to no good. Black vans were parked ungracefully in snowdrifts. When Dawn brushed the ice from their side doors, hoping to peer through their windows, she found nothing. Nothing except tainted glass bearing a distinctive yellow _G _emblem. With a renewed sense of urgency, she continued to pull herself up the steepening hill. It was rapidly becoming a cliff. Before she knew it, she was clinging to an icy rock through her woollen gloves, trying to find a foothold. She could hear shouts from above, and what sounded like the whir of a helicopter's blades. Dawn gritted her teeth, holding back a scream of frustration at her own lack of cliff-scaling abilities. With her free hand, she delved beneath her coat, searching for her trainer's belt. It wasn't easy to do whilst wearing gloves.

"Ugh, I can't...! Noctowl, I need your help!" Although she hadn't managed to find its Pokéball, Noctowl emerged on command. "I have to get up there!"

Noctowl picked its trainer up with one neat swoop and dropped her at the top of the cliff in mere seconds. Knowing that she was running straight into the thick of the action, Dawn did not withdraw her Pokémon. Instead, she unfastened her coat so that she could reach her belt more easily, took off her gloves and set off in a sprint through the sparse forest, her Noctowl flying beside her. As they neared the lake, a large black helicopter loomed ahead, emblazoned with the same Team Galactic ensign that Dawn had seen on the abandoned vehicles.

"What are you gonna do now? You can't just...! _Stop it_!"

Dawn almost failed to recognise Barry's voice. She had never heard him so agitated; his last two words were practically a scream. Fearing the worst, she upped her pace even more, ignoring the burning pain in her legs; she had never run so fast in her life. At last, she could see the lake shimmering in the distance. _Why isn't it frozen_? she wondered. Then, as she got closer, she saw a large trawler-style boat in front of a small island that lay in the centre of the water. Pieces of broken ice were floating in the still-churning water of its wake. Dawn began to slow down, knowing that her momentum would carry her straight into the lake if she wasn't careful. Catching her breath upon the bank, she tried to catch a glimpse of what was happening on that island, but the trawler was blocking her view.

"Give it up, kid. You already lost!"

This time, the voice was that of an older woman. Dawn looked around wildly and, to her relief, her eyes fell on Barry. He was standing further up the lake shore. Aside from appearing both angry and scared, he seemed to be unharmed. Dawn was about to run to his side when she noticed that there was someone between them: a tall woman with purple hair, dressed in a black and white catsuit. _Isn't she cold, dressed like that?_

"Barry!" Dawn yelled. "Over here! It's me!"

The purple-haired woman turned around sharply and Dawn felt her breath freeze in her throat. She'd met that woman before, in Eterna City. She was one of Team Galactic's commanders. Dawn glared at her darkly before running straight past her to join Barry: commander or not, she wouldn't be able to win a two-on-one tag battle. But something was wrong. Barry didn't seem like himself. He wasn't bursting with energy.

"Come on," Dawn said breathlessly. She gave her friend a supportive pat on the back. "We can take care of them if we work together."

"It's no good," Barry replied, hunching his shoulders. "I already..."

"He lost!" the Galactic commander announced. "To me!" She gave Dawn a scathing, head-to-toe work-over with her gaze. "Don't I know you from somewhere? Weren't you the one who ruined things in Eterna City? I'm Commander Jupiter. Don't you remember me?"

"I don't care who you are!" Dawn shouted, although she _did_ remember battling against Jupiter. "I'm about to ruin things here, too!"

"I don't think so!" Jupiter replied with a laugh. "You're a little late, honey. Just sit back and watch the show."

"Huh...?"

There was a rumble from the centre of the lake. For a split-second, Dawn was expecting another bomb; she grabbed Barry's arm and her legs tensed in fear. But it was only the motor of the trawler being kicked into action, and soon the boat was speeding back towards the shore, its deck manned by several Galactic Grunts. When the trawler pulled up on the lake bank, some of the Grunts quickly disembarked onto dry land. The rest vanished into the small cabin at the back of the boat.

"Commander, what's the mode of transportation?"

"We'll use the chopper!" Jupiter pressed a button on a small intercom device that she was wearing like a pair of headphones; it had almost been invisible amidst her hair. "This is Ground Level! Prepare the insulated lifting wires!"

Dawn and Barry raised their heads in unison and saw the door of the overhead helicopter being opened. Two Team Galactic members were hastily unravelling some heavy-duty cables. Meanwhile, the others had unloaded the boat, and Dawn could now see what they were doing: two of them were carrying a cage. Within its confines, a small Pokémon was fighting to free itself. The cage wasn't much bigger than the Pokémon itself, and every time it threw itself against the bars, there was a buzz and a spark. Dawn noticed that the Grunts carrying the cage were wearing rubber gloves. It must have been electrified.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Dawn cried. "You can't capture a Pokémon like that! It's cruel!"

"Yeah, let it go right now!" Barry raised a fist in what he hoped was a threatening way. "What do you want with Uxie, anyway?"

"You wouldn't understand even if I told you," Jupiter replied scornfully. "But, seen as you've joined the party..." She turned to her underlings. "Put the cage down for a moment."

Dawn held her breath with anticipation, wondering what was about to happen. The Grunts unceremoniously dropped the cage into the snow, causing Uxie to bang its head on the topmost bars. It had stopped struggling now and was simply hovering in the centre of its prison, its two tails curled tightly around its body, perhaps to stop them from constantly being zapped. Dawn noticed that its eyes were squeezed shut, and she could only guess that it was in pain. By now, the cables from the helicopter were dangling in the air, and it was clear that the Grunts were simply waiting for Jupiter's next command. A tense silence ensued.

"So, let's say that you've won," Dawn said angrily, although the words were practically agonising. "What now?"

"Let's not be too hasty," Jupiter answered with a wicked grin. "I might have wiped out your friend, but I'd accept a challenge from you, little girl."

"You...you would?"

"Careful, Dawn," Barry whispered. "It might be a trap."

"Well, of course I would!" Jupiter stepped back and reached down towards Uxie's cage in an almost loving way, as if she was going to reach through the bars and stroke its head. Her hand stopped short; she wasn't about to get herself electrocuted. "I want to see what our new prize can actually _do_. For a legendary Pokémon, it looks pretty pathetic. Don't you think so?"

Dawn was at a loss for words. Jupiter evidently understood nothing about why Pokémon obeyed their human trainers. "Uxie won't listen to you after what you've done!"

"You're underestimating the techniques of Team Galactic, honey," Jupiter said darkly. "Uxie! Destroy her!"

Dawn stared at Uxie, feeling not so much afraid as saddened at the horrible way in which it had been captured. But was it going to obey orders and attack?_ It's okay, _she told herself firmly. _I've got my own Pokémon. _She could feel the breeze from her Noctowl's wings stirring her hair. What any of her own Pokémon could do against a legendary one, she had no idea. Uxie, however, didn't move. It merely opened its eyes.

"Dawn, don't look!"

A bright light filled her field of vision, and Dawn somehow knew that it was on the inside, within her own mind. It was too big, too all-encompassing and never-ending to have been anything external. Barry sounded as if he were miles away, and Dawn was now too distracted to worry about him or what he might have been trying to tell her. Against this blinding white backdrop, she began to see images so clear that they almost seemed real. She saw her mother rehearsing for a contest with her Kangaskhan – but the Pokémon was only a baby. Even so, when it roared, a little girl fled from the room, screaming in terror.

Dawn could have laughed at the memory, but before she had the chance, another image, this one less comical, took its place. A phantom pain shot through her arm and she winced at the recollection of that day when she had fallen and broken her wrist. A split-second later, the pain was replaced by a rush of bliss: her first contest victory. As the images whirled by, she was aware of nothing else. She could no longer feel her body, nor did she know if any of the intense flashes of emotion were being portrayed on her face. It was as though she were in her own theatre, watching something that only she could see. It was electrifying and wonderful. But as it played on, Dawn realised with rigid helplessness that each scene was less familiar than the last, until the point at which she was sure that these weren't _her_ memories. She couldn't find herself in any of the pictures. As though someone had flicked a switch, the white screen suddenly disappeared along with its images. Another contest hall faded into nothingness, and nothingness was what remained.

Barry's face had already turned white. He had never stood still for so long, but now he felt paralysed. He had read the Horrific Myth in the Canalave Library – or cast his eyes over it, at least, whilst impatiently waiting for his friends to arrive. He remembered the words now, as if they were burned into his brain: anyone who looked into Uxie's eyes would lose all knowledge of who they were. That must have been the reason why all the images of Uxie in the same book depicted it with its eyes closed.

_It's just a myth. It's not true._

"Dawn...?"

She had fallen to her knees, her hands pressed to her eyes as though they were hurting. She wasn't unconscious, didn't appear to be injured in any way, but Barry knew that something was wrong. She didn't answer when he called her name, nor did she turn around at the sound of his footsteps.

"Dawn? Dawn, answer me!"

In the grip of an unprecedented fear, Barry practically threw himself down into the snow on hands and knees before his friend, trying to look into her face. Her hands fell away from her eyes at last, and she blinked a few times. She was alive. At least, she was still breathing. But there was something in her eyes that Barry couldn't read, not that he'd ever been very good at deciphering things like that. Was it fear? Shock? Pain?

"Are you okay, Dawn?"

She looked at him, and Barry realised what it was. There was _nothing_ in her eyes, even when they met his. That was precisely it. Her expression was blank and her eyes were dead. He had never seen her looking like that before; she'd always been so animated. _No, it can't be true. She's fine._

"Dawn, tell me you're fine," Barry muttered, his voice trembling. "Tell me right now!"

Finally, something appeared in the depths of those eyes. It was confusion, and only a hint of it, but it was enough to make Barry fling his arms around her. He swore that he would never take their friendship for granted again.

Dawn did not return the embrace. "Who are you?" Her question was muffled against the striped sleeve of Barry's sweater and he didn't hear her. Still, he didn't want to let go of her yet. After a few seconds, Dawn pulled away, just enough to be able to speak properly. She examined Barry's face closely. "Do I know you?"

_Oh, she's playing tricks on me now_, Barry thought. _Paying me back for all the times I didn't pay attention to her._ Although he knew that he probably deserved it, he thought that Dawn couldn't have picked a worse time. He let go of her at once with an angry 'hmph' and stood up, turning his back on her, but he couldn't resist answering her question – just in case. "You know who I am! We've been friends forever!"

"Have we?"

_Is she joking?_ Barry glanced back over his shoulder at Dawn. Her face was still blank. Barry knelt down in front of her again, but this time, he seized her by the shoulders and held her at arm's length, almost seething with a mixture of terror, desperation and anger. "Stop it!" he hissed through gritted teeth. His tone became pleading. "Please, Dawn!"

"You're hurting me!" Dawn wrenched his hands from her shoulders and scrambled away from him, clambering to her feet clumsily. "Who _are_ you?" Her eyes fell on Noctowl; it had landed closely beside her. She looked as though she'd never seen a Pokémon before in her life. Her gaze swept over the Team Galactic ensemble, the boat and the helicopter. "Wh-where am I? What's going on?"

Tears welled up in Barry's eyes and he tugged at his own hair. "Don't do this!" he pleaded desperately. "You know me, Dawn! We're neighbours in Twinleaf Town! We used to hang out together! Don't you remember? Professor Rowan came and yelled at us for running into the grass, but it was my fault all along, and then he gave us our Pokémon...?"

Realising that it was in vain and that his friend was not showing any signs of understanding, Barry broke down at her feet, sobbing into his hands. Dawn barely noticed him. She was too busy removing the cumbersome belt from around her waist and throwing it aside. It was somehow the most heartbreaking thing that Barry had ever witnessed.

"What are you doing?" he half-screamed. "Those are your Pokémon! You're going to be a Co-ordinator, just like your Mom! Don't you even remember _her_?"

It seemed that it was this gesture that made Dawn's Noctowl understand what had happened. It let out a sudden screech and began to flap its wings at Dawn. Whether it was trying to startle her back into her senses or just playing around, Barry couldn't tell. But when Dawn lashed out at her Pokémon, driving it away with her fists, he knew that it wasn't her anymore. His friend would never have done that.

"Get this thing away from me!"

Barry rose to his feet and turned to Jupiter, his fists clenched by his sides. "What have you done?" he asked through gritted teeth. Unable to bear the mere sight of the Team Galactic commander for more than a few seconds, he returned his attention to Dawn who was now emptying her coat pockets in a haphazard way, as if trying to find something that made sense. "Dawn, listen to me," Barry said, trying to sound calm. "You must have lost your memory, but I'm your friend! You have to believe me!" Although the damage was already done, he suddenly found himself wondering why Dawn had come to Lake Acuity at all. "Professor Rowan told you to go to Lake Valor, didn't he? Then why did you come here? Were you...were you trying to help me?"

"I don't understand a word you're saying!" Dawn said hopelessly. "Gee, I think you must be crazy."

At last, Jupiter showed a reaction. It seemed that she, too, had been shocked by what had happened to Dawn. Now, realising the extent of the power that they had seized through Uxie, she let out an ecstatic laugh. Barry was ready to attack her with his bare hands, but something held him back. It was most likely the fear of suffering the same fate as Dawn – or something worse. Or perhaps it was a fear of 'proving' that he might be crazy after all. So, instead, he settled for pointing a trembling finger.

"_She's _the one who's crazy! She did this to you!"

Dawn barely glanced at Jupiter; she evidently had no idea who the woman was, nor did she recognise her uniform anymore. "Maybe you're both crazy!"

Leaving her trainer's belt lying in the snow alongside a few other things, including a small vanity mirror, Dawn turned around and ran off into the forest, back towards the cliffs. Barry was about to follow her, but he couldn't quite get over Jupiter's lack of remorse. "Don't you see what you've done?" he asked. "You might as well have killed her!"

"And you're supposed to be her _friend_? That's a little negative, don't you think?"

"My best friend doesn't know who I am! She won't recognise herself when she looks in the mirror! She probably doesn't even know her _own name_ now! What about all the things she's achieved, all of the things she's been through – "

"All meaningless things," Jupiter interrupted. "Hey, look on the bright side. You might find her to be a much better person now." A fresh smile danced across her lips. "_If _you find her again, that is."

Although Barry was practically beside himself with rage, Jupiter had made a good point. Dawn wouldn't know where she was; she was in the middle of nowhere, and she didn't even know that. She didn't know_ who _she was anymore. She couldn't possibly have been any more vulnerable. But Barry had already convinced her that he was a nonsense-babbling, potentially violent lunatic. As much as it tore him apart, he knew that he could not chase after her unless he wanted to scare her out of her wits. _She's already out of her wits!_ But there was another way.

"Noctowl, follow her!" Thinking that she may need more than one Pokémon to protect her, Barry grabbed Dawn's discarded belt from the snow. He couldn't even remember which Pokémon she carried with her, except for the one in the Pokéball that bore a yellow star at its centre. He recognised that one and released its Pokémon. "Shinx, go with Noctowl!"

Then he watched with a sinking heart as Noctowl became a shadow, disappearing into the mist, while Dawn's Shinx scampered off into the forest. He couldn't bear to turn around and see Uxie being hoisted up into the helicopter; it made him wonder whether the same had happened to the Pokémon at the other two lakes. He couldn't figure out why Dawn had ignored Professor Rowan and the situation at Lake Valor. It was so unlike her. _I might never find out now._


	3. Playing Stowaway

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Hmm, I think it's time we started checking up on everyone else, don't you?

* * *

**THREE**

"Any luck yet?" Lucas asked dismally.

"I can't get through to either of them," Professor Rowan replied with a heavy sigh. He sat down on the sofa, ran a hand over his snow-like hair and threw his phone down onto the seat beside him.

They were not at Lake Verity anymore, nor were they at the research centre. They had retreated to the professor's house. Things had not gone well at the lake. Although they'd arrived well in time – before Team Galactic themselves, in fact – Lucas had been defeated by a young redhead of a commander, and there had been too many Grunts for the professor to deal with, although he'd given a few of them a clip around the ear and some harsh words. But insofar as they'd intended to protect Mesprit, they'd failed abysmally.

Lucas stood up for the sake of wandering over to the window; he was feeling restless. "I don't get it," he said, speaking to his faint reflection in the glass.

"Well, I did send Barry to Lake Acuity," the professor said. Was that a hint of regret in his voice? "I should have anticipated that he would be unreachable. There really is _nothing_ up there. No phone signal. Someone with a bit of forethought might have travelled on to Snowpoint City to get in touch with us from there – "

"But Dawn...!" Lucas began.

"Yes, I didn't think Lake Valor was so remote that her phone would cease to work."

"Exactly. I'm worried."

"As am I," Rowan confessed. "But let us hope that they enjoyed more success than we did, and that they're simply slow to communicate it."

*****

Team Galactic's helicopters were very roomy, but Jupiter hated overcrowding. It made her feel claustrophobic. The chopper's six seats were filled – including, of course, the two pilots at the front, and Jupiter herself just behind them. At the back of the helicopter, two Grunts sat on the floor beside a cage that held a very weakened, semi-conscious Uxie. But Jupiter had brought a twenty-strong band with her. The rest were probably still trying to dislodge their vans from the snow near Lake Acuity. The commander smiled in the comfort of her chair and she began to think aloud about the day's events.

"I do remember that girl," she murmured, gazing out of the window. "She was definitely the one who came to Eterna City. As I recall, she defeated me."

Her team knew that tone of voice all too well, and the pair sitting behind her exchanged worried glances. They'd seen what Jupiter had made Uxie do at the lakeside. Was that their commander's idea of _revenge_? They'd always known that it was a bad idea to make Jupiter angry, but erasing someone's memory was something else entirely.

"It's such a shame," Jupiter continued. She sounded regretful now, but it could have been pretence. "She was a good trainer. She could have been an asset."

For the sake of making conversation, one of the pilots glanced over his shoulder. "Do you wish that you'd recruited her, Commander?"

"No, no," Jupiter replied with a wave of her hand, although she didn't sound very sure. "She was much too young. And yet, very strong for her age." She laughed. "But I doubt she'll be a threat to us now, and that friend of hers had too much confidence for his skill level. I don't think we'll be seeing either of them again."

"Commander Jupiter, we've just received word from Lake Verity. Their mission was a success."

"Really? I'm surprised. So, Mars isn't as useless as I thought."

Jupiter had never made a secret of how much she disliked the other female commander. She didn't care if it made her look like she was jealous. She wasn't. She just didn't like the younger woman's attitude. Mars was far too casual, too immature. It wasn't fitting of a high-ranking member of Team Galactic. Apart from that, Mars's overenthusiastic devotion to Master Cyrus was embarrassing and irritating. There had always been a hint of silent competition between the commanders – with the exception of Charon, who was much older and a law unto himself – but Mars didn't know when to quit. Jupiter shook her head. _As long as they succeeded in capturing Mesprit, I don't suppose it matters how much she makes a fool of herself._

"And we know that Saturn had no difficulty in getting the Pokémon from Lake Valor," Jupiter added with a touch of sarcasm. "He was given a bomb to clear the lake, after all, so I don't see how he could possibly have failed. We could have used that bomb to get rid of all the ice, but no matter. We managed without it."

"Commander Saturn contacted us while we were at the lake. He said that everything had gone smoothly."

"Good."_ Good? It's more than good._ "Excellent."

After a lengthy silence, one of the Grunts at the back of the helicopter was heard to mutter, "What about the agents we left behind? Do you think they'll make it back to headquarters in time for the speech? They were snowed in pretty badly."

"Oh, I'm sure they'll think of something," Jupiter said. She didn't particularly care if they never made it off the mountainside. Their work was done.

*****

Dawn glanced over her shoulder. It was still following her, that small blue and gold creature, even though it had to jump from one spot to the next in order to get through the snow. Its fur was soaked and it was shivering; Dawn felt a stab of pity and she slowed down to let it catch up with her. When it was within her reach, she picked it up with a sigh, frowning as it licked her face excitedly.

"I don't know what you're so happy about," she murmured. "We're lost."

With Shinx in her arms, she continued down the hill, listening to the rhythmic crunch of her own footsteps. Then she heard something else. It sounded like a voice. Not wanting to be seen, Dawn ducked into the forest and crept along quietly, intending to use the trees as a hiding place if she needed to. Peering through the snow-covered branches, she found where the voices were coming from. It was a group of those strangely-dressed people from the lake. They were trying to push a black van down the hill, but it wasn't budging, even though they'd cleared most of the snow from around its wheels. In the vehicle's front seat, one of their companions was nervously leaning out of the window, looking into the wing mirror.

"Don't push too hard! The brakes might not work!"

"You can start worrying about the brakes when you start moving!"

"I don't want to start moving if I can't stop! It's alright for you three! You're not the ones who're gonna go rolling down this hill at any – _hey_!" The van lurched suddenly. "Okay, somebody else can drive! I feel like I'm in a death-trap here!"

"Oh, stop complaining and start revving. If we don't make it back to Veilstone City by tomorrow morning..."

Being sure to stay in the shadows of the trees, Dawn crept past them. A little further down the hill was a similar scene: another van, this one with its engine purring contentedly. Four people, all of them clad in those silvery uniforms, were standing on the other side of the vehicle's hood, one of them smoking a cigarette.

"We'll just wait until the windows clear up and the doors unfreeze and then we're good to go!"

"The doors are frozen?" Dawn heard the sound of someone tugging at one of the van's doorhandles; it pinged back with a clang. "How the heck did you get in, then?"

"Through the back. Had to climb over all the seats."

"Did you put the heaters on full?"

"Yup."

"Good. I'm turning into a block of ice." The speaker took a long drag from her cigarette. "I still don't see why the commander had to leave us here. There was plenty of room in the helicopter. You know, sometimes, the way they treat us is just..."

"Someone had to bring these back to Veilstone City," one of her companions replied, patting the van's shiny black hood.

"They could have sent someone else to fetch them later. At this rate, we'll miss all the fun!"

"We'll step on the gas once we get off this stupid mountain."

Dawn narrowed her eyes at the group, wondering what they were up to. What was so fabulous about Veilstone City, and what kind of 'fun' was going on there? As she had fled from the lake, she'd looked back just in time to see what looked like a small cage being pulled up into the helicopter. She had no idea what was happening, what was in that cage or who these people were, but the whole situation seemed darkly interesting. She backtracked a little for the sake of looking at the rear of the van. From here, she was definitely out of sight.

Dawn put down the Pokémon that she was carrying and it let out a quiet growl, concerned at what its trainer was about to do. Still, it followed her closely as she crept out from between the trees. She gazed back up the hill at the first black van that she had passed. Not only was it still stuck, but its driver had gotten out of the front seat and was in a heated argument with the others. Thinking that they were too busy to pay attention to anything going on downhill, Dawn pressed herself against one of the van's rear doors and opened the other as silently as possible. It wasn't easy to do – the hill was so steep that gravity made the metal door feel even heavier than it actually was – but she managed it.

As soon as the door was opened, Shinx sprung into the back of the van. Dawn gasped in surprise as the Pokémon darted under her arm, but she supposed that it didn't matter, as long as it kept quiet. Holding the door open with one arm, she cautiously slipped inside, knees first, catching the door with her foot to stop it from banging shut. She let it close slowly as she shuffled further into the van, but it didn't lock properly. She had to sit up and pull it a little. It made a noise and she cringed. Outside the van, everything fell silent for a moment.

"Did you hear something?"

"Probably just the engine warming up."

"You know, to say that these are state-of-the-art, they sure do creak a lot."

"You'd creak a lot if you'd been sitting in a snowdrift for a few hours. Come on, let's get going. It's steaming up in there already."

Dawn quickly looked around for something that could enable her to hide. She realised that she was lying on a heavy sheet of black canvas. She quickly scrambled underneath it, holding it aloft for Shinx to join her. They settled down just in time. Only a few seconds later, the van's doors were tugged open and the four people took their seats. Dawn felt the vehicle shifting under the extra weight, and the back seats pressing against her. She was lying directly behind them. Although it was cold outside, the heating system must have been on for a long time: it was almost suffocatingly warm under the sheet. Dawn just hoped that wherever Veilstone City was, it wouldn't take too long to get there.

As the black van shakily rumbled onto the snow-covered road, a Noctowl spread its wings and abandoned its perch in a nearby tree, taking to the sky above like a low-lying satellite.

*****

The weather had cleared up a lot and the clock on the bell-tower of Snowpoint City's temple was shining in the distance, but neither of those things made Barry feel any better. His bag felt heavier than ever before, and it wasn't just because he was carrying a few of Dawn's belongings. In his mind, he knew that he was tired and hungry; he'd barely slept or eaten since setting out from Canalave City. Twenty-four hours was a long time. But in his heart, he didn't care about sleep, nor about food. He couldn't stop thinking about Dawn. He dreaded what Professor Rowan was going to say when he found out. Would he be angry at her for going to Lake Acuity? Would he be angry at Barry for failing to protect her? And what about Johanna, Dawn's mother? Who was going to tell her that her daughter had forgotten who she was?

_I'll have to tell her_, Barry thought bravely. But first, he needed to phone Professor Rowan. As soon as he got to Snowpoint City, he found a café where he ravenously wolfed down some food. Then, summoning his courage, he took his phone out of his bag and dialled the number of the research centre in Sandgem Town. Lucas's father was the one who answered it. The line was fuzzy, but at least it worked.

"Barry, I'm glad to hear that you're alright. Doctor Rowan isn't here. He went back to his house with Lucas. I'll give you the number."

Barry took a pen from his bag and scribbled down the number on a napkin. As he tapped it into his phone, his hands were trembling, and his voice shook when he spoke. Although he knew that he wasn't to blame, he couldn't help but feel guilty as he told the professor the whole sorry story. He still couldn't quite believe that it had happened. Professor Rowan's silence was unnerving; Barry wished that he'd called him from a videophone so that he could at least have tried to read the man's facial expressions.

"I should have followed her myself, shouldn't I?" Barry said at last, unable to bear the lull in the conversation for any longer.

"No, you did the right thing," Professor Rowan replied, firmly but kindly. "Her Pokémon will find her, and they'll make sure that she stays safe. As for you, come back to Sandgem Town. It might be best if you fly. Do you have a Pokémon that can carry you?"

"Sure, but...what about Team Galactic?"

"They have the lake guardians now," Rowan replied. "There's nothing we can do about that. Not until we formulate a solid course of action."

"But where have they taken them?"

Professor Rowan took a sharp breath. Considering what had just happened, he didn't know why Barry was so concerned about Team Galactic. Yes, it was very worrying that they now possessed the three lake Pokémon, but there were other things to worry about. Things that were closer to home. The professor wasn't about to tell Barry where he suspected Team Galactic to be going, just in case the boy decided to rush after them on his own.

"Barry, come to Sandgem Town as quickly as you can. We'll sort this out together. I promise you, we're not about to abandon Dawn, nor those Pokémon."


	4. Found and Lost

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I'm sorry, nothing absolutely catastrophic or exciting happens in this chapter. Just as a side note, I fixed a few errors in previous chapters, most of them just stylistic things.

* * *

**FOUR**

In spite of the uncomfortable heat and the hard floor, Dawn somehow managed to fall asleep. Team Galactic's transportation department obviously didn't spare any expense on the suspension: although they were travelling over bumpy mountain roads, Dawn barely felt a thing, and the hum of the engine and the warmth gradually lulled her into a dreamless sleep. She was lying on her side, her bag beneath her head like a makeshift pillow and Shinx nestled against the curve of her stomach. She was awoken by a sudden noise and a faint vibration from underneath her ear. Forgetting where she was, she stretched and felt the restricting metal walls of the van against her hands and feet, then the moistness on the underside of the sheet on top of her, where her breath had condensed upon it.

"What's that noise? Is that your phone?"

A voice from the seat in front of her made Dawn gasp silently. She instantly became still, but it was no good: the sound was coming from inside her bag, a simple but melodic tune. She only wished that she could vanish into thin air along with whatever was making that noise. _Please don't let them find me._

"It sounds like it's coming from back here. Okay, who left their phone in the back?"

Dawn heard a sigh and a rustle. A few seconds later, her protective canvas hiding place was pulled away and she found herself fearfully gazing up into the astonished eyes of a young woman with short, aqua-coloured hair. "H-hey! Who are you? What are you doing in here?"

In the seat beside her, a man with identical hair turned around and glanced over his shoulder. "Huh? Isn't that...? She's the kid from the lake! Stop the car!"

The driver swerved sharply and the van came to a violent and sudden stop. The motion made Dawn bang her head against the wall and she hissed in pain, but she was too worried to think about it for too long. Two pairs of arms reached out and made a grab for her. With a yelp, she scrambled away towards the rear doors of the van. Awoken from its deep sleep by all the fuss, Shinx rolled over and found itself being seized by two Galactic Grunts. If Dawn had had her memory, her blood would have been boiling at the sight of one of her beloved Pokémon in the hands of these cretins.

"Ow! It just zapped me!"

"Get the rubber gloves!"

While the couple in the back were struggling to restrain Shinx without being electrocuted, the other two got out of the van. Within seconds, the rear doors were yanked open and Dawn more or less tumbled into the arms of her captors. They didn't seem like seasoned kidnappers. They stood back in alarm as she went rolling out of the van, and when she hit out wildly, they made no attempt to stop her. The rain was beating down heavily, and so were Dawn's fists – and her bag, which she was using as a battering weapon.

"You don't need to go crazy at us, kid!" one of them yelled, shielding his face with his arms. "You were the one hiding in the back of our ride!"

His companion became serious and looked at Dawn suspiciously. "Maybe she's a spy."

The two of them exchanged glances and appeared as though they were trying their best to look angry and intimidating as they rounded upon Dawn. Although she wasn't exactly _afraid_, she backed away. "So," one of them said, "you thought you were going to intrude upon our plans, did you?"

"It's a good thing we caught you before we got to Headqu...I mean, to Veil...to where we were going."

"Veilstone City?" Dawn suggested.

"Damn it, she already knows!"

"Who cares?" One of them gave Dawn a firm shove, hard enough to make her lose her balance and go crashing into the muddy grass by the roadside. "Let's just leave her here and get going."

They slammed the rear doors of the van and scurried back to their seats. Climbing to her feet angrily, Dawn watched the van speeding away. She took off her gloves and hat, which were already wet by now. They weren't going to provide much protection from the rain. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she set off walking in the same direction as the van, not expecting to catch up with it, but hoping that she would find her way to this mysterious Veilstone City place in time for the 'fun' – whatever that meant.

*****

"Still no answer," Barry murmured sadly, putting his phone down onto the table.

"But it rang?" Lucas asked. He stared at Barry's phone intently. "That means she's not in the mountains anymore." He glanced at the man sitting across the table. "Doesn't it, Professor Rowan?"

"Yes," the professor replied, not looking very happy at this revelation, "but that begs the question...where _is _she? I already telephoned the mountain rangers in Snowpoint City. Should I ask them to cancel their search?"

"Did you tell Johanna?" Barry asked.

"No!" Rowan answered at once, and sharply.

He didn't often raise his voice like that; the two boys looked at him in surprise. He let out a huff and tried to come up with a plausible excuse, one that didn't say that he felt partially responsible for what had happened to Dawn. Only partially, because after all, he had asked her to travel to Lake Valor. But something equally terrible could have happened to her if she _had _obeyed him. _What was I thinking, sending these youngsters to face the likes of Team Galactic? What will I tell Dawn's mother if we don't manage to fix this?_

"I think," he said at last, "we should try to resolve this before we go upsetting Johanna. She knows that Dawn is travelling, she expects her to be away for some time..." Professor Rowan couldn't quite believe that he was thinking along such deceitful lines. His voice trailed off and he shook his head at himself. He was almost glad when Barry spoke again.

"What if Team Galactic have got her? They might have found her near Lake Acuity and taken her as some kind of hostage. They could have done that, right? I mean, they're evil enough to do something like that, aren't they?"

"Well, their hearts are certainly in the _wrong_ places, put it that way," Professor Rowan said grimly. "But their brains seem to be absent altogether. Maybe we can use that to our advantage."

"So, uh...are we going after them?" Lucas asked. His voice betrayed his nervousness. He hadn't much enjoyed the crushing humiliation of losing to Commander Mars at Lake Verity; he didn't particularly want to repeat it.

"We have to!" Barry declared. "Especially if they've got Dawn – "

"We don't know that they've got Dawn," Professor Rowan interrupted, holding up a hand as a signal for Barry to calm down. "But I think something must be done about them, nevertheless."

"But..." Barry's face fell, not in response to the professor's 'calming' gesture, but something else. "We don't know where they've gone."

"Lucas might have some idea," the professor said with a wry smile. He nodded at his assistant.

"Me...?"

Lucas was stunned for a moment. His mouth fell open in surprise and he stared at the professor, hoping for some clue. A few moments later, it came to him. He'd had his own run-in with Team Galactic, long before that day's events. The last time he'd been in Veilstone City, a couple of their thugs had robbed him in broad daylight. They'd taken his Pokédex. How could he have forgotten that? He'd never been so afraid in his life – afraid of what Professor Rowan would say when he found out. Compared to that fear, sneaking onto Team Galactic's territory to retrieve the Pokédex had been like a walk in Amity Square. He wouldn't have done it quite so easily without Dawn's help, however. And, to his relief, the professor hadn't been very angry at all. Rowan had even laughed at his account of how he and Dawn had made short work of the Galactic Grunts.

"They've got that huge building in Veilstone City," Lucas said at last. "Is that...could that be where they're heading?"

"Then that's where _we're _going!" Barry said, leaping to his feet. "Come on, who's with me?"

The professor sighed wearily and wiped his brow. "I think you have enough energy and determination for all of us, young Barry."

The idea of tackling Team Galactic alone didn't bother Barry in the slightest, even though he had lost to one of their commanders that very day. He had already picked up his satchel and was rushing to the door when Lucas, in a rare moment of impulsiveness, decided that he couldn't resist the urge to follow.

"Barry, wait! I'm coming with you!"

"Then you'd better hurry up!"

Lucas glanced at Professor Rowan hesitantly, as if seeking permission to leave, but the old man only smiled. "I think you better had. Don't worry, I won't tell your father."

*****

Team Galactic's headquarters – or the Galactic Veilstone Building, as it was officially known – was more than just a series of offices. It was the hub of the whole organisation. As such, it included a sprawling laboratory, an expansive warehouse, a huge garage and hangar, even residential quarters for its workers. This was one of the reasons why Team Galactic tended to attract people who were down-and-out, people who had nowhere else to go. They came for the decent pay and the 'glamour' of being part of a mysterious group, although the mystery didn't exactly get cleared up after they'd joined. They came for the room-and-board at the Veilstone Building, but what they didn't realise was that they wouldn't see much of their beds: quite often, they'd be made to work all night as well as all day.

This was one of those times. Actually, it was the busiest time in Team Galactic's relatively short history. Over the course of that day, the three squadrons from the lake missions had returned, all of them successful. Saturn and his group had been the first, by road, with Azelf firmly restrained in one of their black vans. Judging from their speed, they hadn't encountered any opposition whatsoever at Lake Valor. A few hours later, almost at the same time, two helicopters had arrived: one from Lake Verity, the other from Lake Acuity.

The three commanders were soundly pleased with what they had accomplished, but they knew that they wouldn't be receiving any congratulations from their boss. Not yet, anyway. The capture of the lake guardians was just a means to an end, and an end that Master Cyrus was impatient to achieve. Tomorrow he would deliver a speech to the Team Galactic masses before setting off for the Spear Pillar. Before then, the only people who would see him would be Charon and his team of scientists. They had already begun their experimentation on Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf, and they would probably be working throughout the night in order to have the two red chains completed by morning.

But it didn't matter. These days, Master Cyrus barely slept, and the world revolved around him. Figuratively speaking, of course. But he was close to making it a literal reality. Not that anybody else was aware of that.

*****

Dawn was shivering and drenched to the bone by the time she came across anything resembling shelter. Countless cars had passed by, but aside from a few unhelpful beeps, none of them had paid any attention to her. At last, she came across what looked like a small restaurant by the roadside. It had a red and white, café-style canopy over the door and even an outside seating area, both completely at odds to the dismal weather. As Dawn walked up the path through the metal tables and chairs, she wondered why anyone would want to sit outside in this torrential downpour.

When she opened the door, a small bell announced her presence, making her jump. She closed the door behind her and gazed around the room. A few tables with coverings to match the canopy outside were placed here and there. Directly ahead was a counter with a glass cabinet, filled with cakes and pastries. Behind it, a woman in a headscarf was humming whilst putting crockery away.

"I'll be with you in a minute, dear!"

Dawn swallowed the awkward lump in her throat and continued to look around, taking in the striped wallpaper, the modest chandelier on the ceiling and the radio playing quietly from the counter top. After putting away the last of the plates and wiping her hands, the woman gave Dawn a warm smile.

"What can I get for you? Will you be sitting in? Nasty weather outside, isn't it?"

"I..." Now that Dawn thought about it, she _did_ feel hungry, but she forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand. "I'm trying to get to Veilstone City."

"Well, you're on the right road. This is Route 215. Which way were you going? Where are you travelling from?"

"Uh..." Unable to give a proper reply, Dawn merely pointed in the direction in which she'd been going after being abandoned. "I was walking that way."

"Then that's the right way," the woman replied. Her smile faded as she noticed the water dripping from the bottom of Dawn's coat. "But poor you, walking in this weather! It's still quite a way to Veilstone City. Are you all on your own?"

When Dawn nodded, the woman automatically searched the girl for any sign that she might be a Pokémon trainer. Aside from trainers and Pokémon rangers, it was rare that people walked along this route – and even then, they were usually on bicycles and often took the high road for its views and Pokémon-catching opportunities. Someone like Dawn was an unusual sight, and she didn't seem to be wearing a trainer's belt.

"Not even any Pokémon to keep you company?" the woman asked, trying not to sound too nosy.

Dawn suddenly remembered the Pokémon that those people in the van had taken – she didn't want to say that they'd _stolen_ it, seen as it wasn't hers, but it had definitely been following her. She only hoped that they weren't planning on causing it any harm. "No," she replied. "I don't have any."

"Well, you'd better take care of yourself. Are you sure I can't interest you in something to eat? Or a hot chocolate, maybe?"

Dawn shook her head and began backtracking towards the door. "No," she replied uneasily. She was starving, but couldn't recall having any money with her. "But thank you for the help."

She left the restaurant and braced herself against the wind and rain again, jamming her hands into her coat pockets in an attempt to keep them warm, even though her satin-lined pockets themselves were already cold and damp. She felt her screwed-up hat in one pocket, her gloves in the other – and beneath her gloves, her fingers brushed against cold metal coins. So, she'd had money after all – but where had it come from? There it was again, that same vague fuzziness in her head. It had been bothering her for...as long as she could remember, which wasn't very long at all. Dawn felt clueless and lost beyond words. Why was she travelling to Veilstone City? Because she knew of no other place, and she hoped that she would find something meaningful there.


	5. A Bed For The Night

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Poor Dawn. That's all I can say. (This is a longer chapter but I've been falling short with the others, so I'm making up for it now. This one was a lot of fun to write, so I hope you enjoy it! Please review!)

* * *

**FIVE**

It was evening, and Dawn was so exhausted that she was close to tears. The sign announcing that she had arrived in Veilstone City had come too late. Dawn was sure that she could walk no further, and the realisation that Veilstone City was a huge and unfamiliar place made her heart sink to her aching feet. She stumbled through the streets like a zombie. Thinking that she was just a well-dressed beggar in her crimson coat and pink boots, people avoided her when she tried to ask them for help, and she didn't even know what to ask for. Finally, she approached a security guard who was locking up the doors of a large department store.

"Excuse me..."

"Sorry, honey, we're just closing."

"I need somewhere to sleep," Dawn said desperately, her words slurred as a result of tiredness. "And some food," she added.

The man glanced at her. "You're not a Pokémon trainer?" Dawn was sick of being asked that question. She sighed and summoned up the energy to shake her head. "Well..." The security guard checked that the shutter on the doors was secure and gave the girl his full attention. "You could always try a Pokémon Centre. They might let you in even if you're not a trainer."

"Where...?"

"Just keep following this road. You'll find one around the corner."

"Thanks."

Dawn set off walking again, her bag hanging limply from her numb fingers and her hair clinging to her face. There had been a time, not so long ago, when she would never have allowed herself to look half as dishevelled as this. Now she didn't even know what she looked like, nor did she care. She just wanted to fall asleep. _It can't be that far now_, she told herself. Although her boots were sturdy and comfortable, she'd been walking for so long that she was sure she'd worn holes in their soles.

She knew the Pokémon Centre when she got there, simply because it was the only thing in sight that was still open. All of the other places were closed and barred. Widening her eyes at its welcoming light and its characteristic red roof, Dawn all but threw herself through the door and straight towards the counter where the pink-haired nurse put a hand to her mouth in concern.

"Oh, are you alright?" she asked urgently. "Is it an emergency?"

"I just need a bed and some food," Dawn murmured, feeling herself close to tears again. Whether or not it counted as an emergency, she wasn't sure.

"I'm so sorry," Nurse Joy said – and she truly did sound sorry. "This Pokémon Centre is very busy, being where it is. We're completely full tonight. There are a few more branches in Veilstone City, but – " She stopped abruptly; the girl in front of her had just collapsed onto the floor in tears. "Oh, no, please don't cry! I...I'll get you a hot drink and some food."

She wasn't supposed to abandon the front desk in case there _was _an emergency, but the reception room was empty for now. It was long enough for her to brew up some hot milk and bring it back along with a packet of cookies. They were from the staffroom, but it didn't matter. Nurse Joy gently helped Dawn to her feet and sat her down upon one of the chairs in the waiting room. She set the makeshift 'meal' down on the table and waited for the girl to calm down.

"There, that's better. Do your Pokémon need healing?"

"I don't have any Pokemon!" Dawn half-shouted. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"Well, you're in a Pokémon Centre," Nurse Joy replied. She wasn't at all bothered by Dawn's tone of voice; she knew that she'd probably sound the same if she was that tired. "Speaking of which, I'll phone the others and see who's got a spare bed for the night."

By the time she returned from making her phone-calls, the glass was empty and the cookies half-gone. The poor girl was falling asleep in the chair. Joy felt guilty for waking her, but she wasn't allowed to just let someone sleep in the reception room overnight. Something about health and safety regulations. She was tempted to make an exception, but she knew that there was no substitute for a comfortable bed. She touched Dawn's shoulder lightly and the girl awoke with a start.

"There's a room at the Pokémon Centre on the east side of town," she said, "and you won't even have to share it with anyone."

"Hmm," Dawn replied, barely awake.

"And there's a bus that'll take you straight there. Come on, you'll have a bed in no time."

Dawn had very little energy left to move at all, so she didn't protest when the nurse bundled the rest of the cookies into her bag and led her outside. She was missing half of what was going on; her eyes kept closing, much against her will. Before she knew it, she was sitting directly behind the driver on a local bus, with Nurse Joy giving strict instructions from the roadside.

"I know you stop around there, so please make sure she gets off there. If you could actually see her into the Pokémon Centre, that'd be wonderful. This city isn't safe these days. Here..." The nurse paid for Dawn's bus ticket, plus a little extra for the driver's extra trouble. "Please take care of her. I don't think she's feeling very well."

The doors slid shut with an irritating squeak. Too tired to worry about missing her stop, Dawn slumped in the chair and tumbled into a deep sleep. Veilstone City must have been even bigger than she'd imagined, because the cross-city bus ride lasted nearly three quarters of an hour. She wasn't aware of this; she was practically unconscious, and even the driver found it difficult to wake her up.

"Hey, kid. Miss?" Shaking his head, the driver got out of his seat and stood over his sleeping passenger, unsure of what to do. "Hey!" He clapped his hands loudly. "This is your stop! Nurse Joy said you have to get off the bus here!"

"No," Dawn protested. By now she was lying across the width of the double seat. Her words were muffled against her sleeve.

"But...that's the Pokémon Centre, right there. That's where you're going, isn't it?"

Dawn blew out her breath in a mid-sleep sigh. "I don't have Pokémon," she said yet again.

"Fine. Suit yourself. This isn't part of my job description." The driver returned to his seat and the doors squealed shut once more.

Dawn smiled at the comforting rev of the engine as the bus rumbled away from what was supposed to be her lodgings for the night. She hoped that it would never end. But it did, of course. The driver had come to the end of his shift and was taking the bus back to the depot. Someone else would take it up again for the return journey back across town. As he left, the driver glanced over his shoulder at Dawn, still fast asleep. He couldn't just leave her there, but he knew better than to try to move her. So, as a compromise, he left a note for the next driver, saying that she needed to go back to the other Pokémon Centre. He'd never gone to so much trouble with a passenger before. Or he _had_, but they were usually older and drunker than this one.

*****

Barry had thought that the next time he visited Pastoria City, he would be settling in as an apprentice at Crasher Wake's Gym. But it was late, the Gym was closed for the night and Barry had so many other things on his mind. Sitting on the top bunk in a room at the Pokémon Centre, he'd emptied some things out of his bag, including Dawn's trainer belt. He sighed so quietly that nobody heard it, perhaps not even the inhabitants of those six Pokéballs. Well, two of them were absent, and Barry fell into a semi-trance as he wondered whether Shinx and Noctowl were still following Dawn. If Team Galactic had tried to kidnap her, those two would surely have done something to stop them, wouldn't they?

"Lucas? You still awake?"

"Yeah," Lucas replied quietly from the bottom bunk.

"Are you worried?" Barry leaned over the railings at the side of his bed. The other boy was reading by the light of a torch.

"Sort of." Lucas folded the edge of the page, closed the book and tucked it under his pillow. "Hey, do you know why Dawn went to Lake Acuity? I thought she was meant to go to Lake Valor."

"So did I. Maybe...she didn't think I was tough enough." Barry no longer wanted Lucas to be able to see his face, so he retreated back into his own bunk and lay back with a sigh, gazing up at the ceiling. "I never beat her," he muttered. "She's always been a bit better than me. Just a bit, though!"

"Yeah, she seems like a good trainer," Lucas said thoughtfully. "But you must be good, too. That's why the professor trusts you. Both of you."

"Not as much as he trusts you," Barry replied.

"I dunno. I mean, he sent you two off alone, but he came with me to Lake Verity. I don't think I'm that good, but...it'd be nice to think that I could do things on my own."

"If there's a showdown against Team Galactic tomorrow, I'll let you handle it."

"Hey!" Lucas prodded the underside of Barry's bed in protest.

"Just kidding," Barry added with a grin.

*****

Considering she'd only had about an hour's sleep on a rickety bus, Dawn felt a little more refreshed when she woke up. But the bus was deserted, its doors open and its lights out. It was a strangely eerie place to be, and Dawn couldn't wait to get out. She grabbed her bag, put it on her shoulder and got off the bus within seconds. Now she had to go through the rigmarole of finding out where she'd landed this time round. Gazing into the large garage nearby, she saw that it was filled with similar buses. In front of it, a few men in drivers' uniforms were talking in the shadows.

Dawn decided to ignore them and instead set off in the direction of an interesting-looking building across the road. In contrast to the dead, dark and grey surroundings, this place was brightly-lit, with shiny blue walls beneath a domed glass roof. Although it might not have been open to the public, Dawn scanned the numerous windows with her eyes and she was sure that she could see people's shadows moving around inside. _It's a big place. They must have somewhere for me to rest._

She walked up the stone staircase and through the square towards the large building. The doors opened automatically and Dawn wandered into the foyer which was empty save for one girl sitting behind a secretarial desk. She had her back turned and was talking to someone on the phone, but Dawn had to stifle her own gasp at the sight of her distinctive hair. _She's one of them! _Looking around with a new sense of awareness, she recognised the yellow logo on the floor at her feet and wasn't sure whether to run or take the chance to explore.

She had to decide quickly: it sounded as if the girl behind the desk was about to finish her conversation. As she turned to replace the receiver, Dawn scurried noiselessly into the nearest doorway. _Well_, she thought, pressing herself against the wall, _I'm here now. I might as well keep going._

*****

She'd had a busy day and was beginning to feel its effects, but Jupiter had no intention of going to bed yet. She was too excited, although she would never have shown it. Everyone else might have already locked themselves away for the night, but the very idea of going to sleep at a time like this seemed ridiculous. Saturn was in the laboratory, working as Charon's assistant, but Jupiter had no great interest in science. So, instead, she had resigned herself to patrolling the now-empty corridors. It was boring, but it gave her time to think about the immense changes that would begin tomorrow.

_But it really is boring_, she remarked silently, stopping at the end of the corridor this time to gaze out of the window. The Veilstone Building had great views. From here, someone could see right across the city; on a good day, they could even see as far as Lake Valor. _Well, maybe not anymore_, Jupiter thought with a smirk. She couldn't help but wonder what it looked like now – probably a lot less prettier than it had before the bomb – but seen as it was night-time, she couldn't see that far. In fact, most of the view was washed out by the interior lighting and her own reflection. And that of someone else, far behind her.

Jupiter turned around at once. A reflection was enough to tell her that the person she'd just seen was not wearing a Team Galactic uniform. She could barely believe her eyes; she was sure that she had to be hallucinating. Strolling down the corridor, pausing to gaze into doors and read the placards on the wall, was that perennial nuisance of a girl who had shown up at Lake Acuity. _No, it can't be her. _But it was. Aside from the absence of a hat and gloves, she was dressed the same. She looked a little scruffier than the last time Jupiter had seen her, but if she'd been travelling all day...

_How did she get here in the first place?_ For a moment, Jupiter froze in horror. Had she, or some of her underlings, been followed all the way back from Lake Acuity? _No_, she told herself firmly. _The kid wouldn't have the mind to do that. Especially not after... _She recalled the day's events in their entirety and a wicked smile spread across her face. It didn't fade, not even when Dawn gazed straight down the corridor and saw her. For the Team Galactic Commander, it was a moment of triumph in itself. She had battled this girl before and she had lost. Now they were standing face to face again, but her would-be challenger no longer had any Pokémon with her. Perhaps she didn't even know that she'd ever been a trainer at all.

"But what_ does _she know?" Jupiter muttered darkly under her breath.

Dawn had halted in her tracks. She was sure that she recognised the woman standing in front of the window just a matter of metres away, but she couldn't have said how or why. She still didn't feel scared, even though she had been dreading the prospect of running into someone as she explored the building, but she certainly felt wary. The atmosphere was inexplicably tense, as though there was some sort of stand-off that Dawn wasn't fully aware of She was glad when the woman broke the stalemate by beckoning her.

"Come here. Don't worry, you're not in any trouble."

Dawn took a deep breath and cautiously walked towards her. She stopped a few feet away –_ a safe distance_, she thought – and her fingers danced nervously in her coat pocket. She shrugged a little, unsure of whether she should say something. She didn't like the look she was getting.

"What's your name?" Jupiter asked calmly, still smiling.

"Uh..."

It struck Dawn as a simple question – and a welcome change from people asking whether or not she had any Pokémon – but she simply couldn't answer it. She took a breath to speak, but her mind was blank. It was what Jupiter had been expecting. The commander's smile broadened even further and she had to shield her gleeful grin with one hand. _This really is my lucky day. _Disturbed by the amusement on her face, Dawn became defensive.

"Why do you want to know my name?" she demanded.

The flash of anger in her eyes almost made Jupiter laugh outright. She might have managed to erase this girl's memory, but there was still a lot of spirit left in her – which was good, because it meant that there was something to toy with.

"Really," Jupiter said, her smile becoming unpleasant. "Tell me your name. If you can remember it." A laugh escaped from between her teeth. "Oh, I knew it was you. This is just wonderful."

"I don't understand," Dawn whispered, the sparkle vanishing from her eyes as she gave in to her own confusion.

The commander checked her watch. It really was getting late. There was a lot of potential for fun here, but it would have to wait until another time. "You'll understand soon," she said. "Come with me."

She set off in the direction of the residential quarters, glancing over her shoulder now and again to make sure that Dawn was still in tow. The girl followed without a word, with just the occasional glare at Jupiter's back when she wasn't looking. She didn't really know who this purple-haired woman was, but Dawn had already decided that she didn't like her very much. Nevertheless, she dutifully followed her for what seemed like ages, until at last, they stopped outside one of the many identical doors. Commander Jupiter took a large set of keys from her belt, unlocked the door and stepped aside.

"Go on," she said quietly.

"Why?" Dawn asked.

"Aren't you tired?"

If there was one thing that Dawn definitely _was_, it was tired. This was enough to quell her suspicions. She pushed the door open and closed her eyes in blissful relief at the sight of a cosy room with a bed, a dressing table, a closet, even its own attached bathroom. At that moment in time, it seemed like she'd just walked into Heaven. Although she hadn't been invited to make herself at home yet, she sat down upon the bed and let her bag slip from her shoulder.

"Don't fall asleep," the woman said from the doorway. "Wait here. I'll be back in a minute."

She disappeared and Dawn clicked her tongue in annoyance. But her hostess was true to her word and returned quickly. This time, she entered the room and closed the door behind her. She was carrying something. It was on a coat hanger, but it was covered with a protective black plastic sheet that made it impossible to see what lay beneath it. Under the woman's other arm was a box, and on top of that, a pair of scissors. She tilted the box, letting the scissors slip onto the dressing table. Whatever was on the coat hanger, she hung it up in the closet and pulled out the chair from the table.

"Sit down."

Dawn wanted to point out that she was already sitting down, but something told her that it was probably best to obey. Swallowing hard to suppress the fear that was slowly rising in her throat, she rose from the bed and sat down in the chair. Within mere seconds, her hair had been pulled out from beneath the collar of her coat and cut to less than half its length. Despite the dressing table, there was no mirror in the room, but Dawn heard the scissors next to her ears and saw thick strands of her own hair falling onto her coat sleeves. She was too stunned to react.

"The alarm will go off at seven. Be ready by eight. I'll come to collect you myself."

The words barely registered in Dawn's mind. She stared down at the fallen hair on her coat sleeves and narrowed her eyes. "Who areyou?"

"You can call me Commander Jupiter."

_Commander? So, she's in charge of me now?_ "But..."

"You won't be needing this anymore," the commander said, picking up Dawn's bag from where she'd left it on the bed. As she headed for the door, she glanced back at her newest recruit and felt a fleeting flicker of pity. "I know you haven't the faintest idea who you are or what's going on," she said, smiling in a way that was somewhere between malicious and sympathetic. "But I can tell you that you're just like the rest of us. You were born to serve a great leader. Sweet dreams."


	6. Dawn Breaks

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Paths are about to cross. Well, almost. I'm back at university now so things are a little busier, but the next chapter is already underway.

* * *

**SIX**

Commander Jupiter may have wished her 'sweet dreams', but dream sweetly Dawn did not. In spite of her exhaustion, the surreal experience of being swept into an unfamiliar room and given a quick haircut was deeply unsettling, not to mention the strange things that Jupiter had _said_. With all of this whirling around in her mind, it took Dawn a long time to fall asleep. And if yesterday had been traumatic, today promised to be even worse. She could just tell by the aggressive wail of the seven o'clock alarm. _At least the bed was comfy_, she thought in the middle of her yawn.

She was half-tempted to sleep in and let the 'commander' be damned when she came to 'collect' her in an hour's time, but it sounded as though the whole building was coming to life. Dawn could not have gone back to sleep if she'd tried. Instead, she dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. Afterwards, she noticed that there was even a bathrobe on the back of the door. _Maybe this place won't be so bad after all_, she thought as she put it on. It wouldn't have been bad at all, had it not been for that little voice telling her that something wasn't right.

Her clothes from yesterday were still damp. She'd thrown them over the back of the chair last night, so not only were they damp, but they were also littered with bits of her own hair. But she had conveniently been given something to wear, hadn't she? Dawn glanced at the closet. Moments later, she was staring at a uniform, identical to the ones that the people in the mountains had been wearing. _And they expect me to wear this, do they? What's in the box? _Dawn opened the box that Jupiter had brought and groaned aloud at the sight of a pair of white boots and a _wig_. She sank to the floor with her head in her hands.

Suddenly the room was not so much Heaven as a prison cell. There was only one window in the bedroom. It was set high in the wall, much too high for Dawn to reach. She might have been able to touch it if she stood on the chair, but it was small and looked as though it wasn't designed to open. Beginning to panic now, Dawn ran to the door and yanked at the handle, ignoring the sound of footsteps from the corridor outside; she wasn't expecting to just walk out of there, but she would damn well put up a fight. As for the fact that she was wearing nothing but a thin bathrobe, she couldn't care less. She just wanted to escape.

But the door was locked. With a growl that was almost a scream, Dawn gave it one last hammer with both fists before retreating into the room. She sat down upon the bed and tried to think calmly. Why did she feel so threatened? There was something about this place and its endless corridors and its lack of individuality – yes, that was it. If she put on that uniform, she would look just the same as the people whom she'd seen at the lake. Then again, was that necessarily a bad thing? Ever since Commander Jupiter had asked for her name, she had felt a burning urge to find an identity. _Maybe this is it._

*****

For once, Barry was following someone rather than rushing on ahead. He had no choice: he didn't know his way around town. The last time he'd been in Veilstone City, he'd made a clean sweep at the Gym before becoming enchanted with the idea of training under Crasher Wake in Pastoria City. Now, he wasn't sure if that was still his aim. Dealing with Team Galactic had to come first, of course, but even after they were defeated, would things ever be the same again? Would _Dawn_ ever be the same again?

"I hope you know where you're going," he muttered, partly to distract himself from his own thoughts and partly in alarm: Lucas was leading them down a dangerous-looking backstreet. Even though it was broad daylight, Barry felt nervous and began to walk faster as a result.

"Sure, I do. It was just at the end of this alleyway where I got attacked last time."

"_What!?_" Barry asked, not at the top of his voice but in a fearful whisper.

"I told you," Lucas replied. "A couple of those Galactic creeps knocked me down and grabbed my Pokédex."

"So...why are we going this way again?"

"Their base is around here somewhere. I'm sure we'll spot some of them when we get – "

Lucas was cut off by a loud yell from Barry who had decided to walk ahead, presumably trying to get through the alleyway as quickly as possible. He had walked into somebody at the other end. Although Lucas imagined that Barry had a habit of doing this, he quickly ran to catch up with him, just in case he _was _in trouble. He found Barry rubbing his nose, and a shocked-looking man in a faded brown leather trench-coat steadying himself against the wall. He looked familiar.

Lucas reached under the back of his cap to scratch his head. "Hey..."

"So, it is you again," the man said in a strangely hushed voice when he had composed himself.

"Weren't you here last time – " Lucas began.

"Didn't we see you in – " Barry said, almost at the same time. The two boys looked at each other and an awkward silence followed.

"Yes, the both of you have encountered me before," the man said at last, "but I was not aware that you knew each other."

Barry and Lucas exchanged glances again, the former raising an eyebrow at the man's convoluted way of talking. "Aren't you a cop or something?"

"I am one of the International Police, yes, with the codename of Looker."

"I knew it was you! Hey, I'm sorry about running into you just now." Barry grabbed Lucas's shoulder without warning and shook him lightly. "But it's lucky I did, huh?" he said to Lucas with a grin. "We can ask him to help us!"

"Not today, my friends," Looker said with a solemn frown. "Something is happening at the base of the Team Galactic today. I am here to discover what it is."

"Then you _can _help us!" Barry insisted, sounding more desperate this time. "Please, let us come with you! They've got the Pokémon from the lakes and – "

"If you wish to help, follow me." With a dramatic flick of his coat, Looker continued along his way with Barry and Lucas following closely, walking quickly to keep up with the detective's fast, determined pace.

"Gee, he doesn't take much persuading, does he?" Barry muttered behind his back.

"To enter the Team Galactic building directly is very dangerous," Looker said, either not hearing or ignoring Barry's remark. "So, we will use a secret way that I found. But we must be careful still."

Lucas soon realised where he was leading them. He recognised the heavy iron gate, behind which lay a number of nondescript buildings with a few trucks parked outside. This was Team Galactic's warehouse. Surprisingly, there was nobody there now, no Grunts standing on sentry duty as there had been last time. Looker took a card key out of his coat pocket and used it to open the gate. It slid open without protest and the three intruders walked straight onto enemy territory. Barry and Lucas were tense, both poised to defend themselves if any of Team Galactic's goons _did_ show up. But it was as though the entire complex had been deserted.

"This is just _weird_," Lucas said as they walked into one of the warehouse buildings. "Why would they leave it all unguarded like this?"

They waited as Looker tapped a code into a number pad next to a blue metal door. A beep, and it was open. "Come, we must hurry now," the detective whispered, holding the door open for his two companions.

Barry and Lucas followed, both of them feeling nervous –_ afraid_, if they would admit it. The average member of Team Galactic might not have been the brightest Chinchou in the pack, but there had to be a security presence _somewhere_. Maybe they were all hiding in wait, watching the intruders on camera and preparing to strike. The idea of being surrounded and cornered, even if it was only by a bunch of mindless imbeciles, didn't sound very appealing. On the other hand, Looker seemed to know his way around this Diglett-warren of corridors; hopefully it wasn't just false confidence.

"Where exactly are we going?" Lucas asked eventually.

"You will see."

How he managed to navigate through the building was anybody's guess; everything was the same, with blue doors and stark white-washed walls which bore strange 'motivational' plaques at regular intervals. Lucas glanced at some of them as they rushed past. They made him shudder. _Everything belongs to Team Galactic! Look beyond the world — space will become Team Galactic's!_

"If they read that a hundred times a day, no wonder they think it's okay to steal things from other people," Lucas murmured to himself.

His comment went unnoticed; Looker had stopped outside one of the many doors. There was a panel beside this one which read _Upper Auditorium: Viewing Balcony. Authorised personnel only._ The detective put a hand to the door but hesitated, turning to his two companions, "When we enter," he whispered, "we must not make noise. Anything we say or do, they may pick it up. This room was designed for things to be heard. Also, we must stay low, or else they may see us. Do you understand?"

In truth, Barry and Lucas didn't understand. They became tight-lipped with fear, treading quietly and hardly even daring to breathe as they followed Looker through the door. They noticed that he bent down until he was almost crawling, and they did the same. The reason, they saw, was that they were on a small balcony, with a wall that came only to around waist height. The urge to look down into the room below was irresistible, but the worry of being caught was enough to make Lucas and Barry pay heed to Looker's instructions. Unable to bear the mystery of the situation, Barry tapped Looker on the shoulder.

"Where...are...we?" he mouthed silently.

Looker shook his head and pointed to his ear, then at the wall. Barry understood that he was being told to listen – but to what? Everything was quiet. Just as both he and Lucas were beginning to think that Looker might not know what he was doing after all, they heard something. It was the sound of a door being opened, followed by countless footsteps and voices mingling in conversation. This went on for what seemed like an eternity, and Barry could only guess at the size of the crowd – and of the room, for that matter, if it was going to hold them all.

"Line up! Come on, make use of the space!"

Barry gritted his teeth as he recognised the powerful female voice that carried over the top of the mêlée. It was that of the commander who'd beaten him at Lake Acuity. He was sure of it. Even just the sound of her voice made his skin crawl now. If it hadn't sounded as though she was surrounded by other people down there, Barry might even have sprung up and challenged her to a rematch. _I'll get her later_, he told himself. _If it's the last thing I do._

The conversations slowly began to die away and were finally silenced by the shotgun-like sound of a door being slammed shut. It was enough to make Lucas flinch. His heart was hammering against his ribs so loudly that he was sure everyone would be able to hear it. He now understood why Looker had told them to keep quiet: the auditorium's acoustics were very good. Even the slightest cough was amplified. Leaning against the short wall in front of them, Barry and Lucas looked at each other, each of them wondering what was happening but unable to say anything.

At the back of the auditorium, Commander Jupiter was sitting in the shadows. She wasn't supposed to be there; she was supposed to be preparing for the trip to Mount Coronet. Instead, she was keeping a close eye on her latest recruit. Standing right in the centre of the back row, under Jupiter's watchful gaze, Dawn looked just the same as all the other Grunts, with only a slight difference: she looked lost and dejected. Jupiter didn't need to see her face to know that. It was obvious from the girl's body language, so at odds with the tense excitement coming from everyone else in the room.

Nevertheless, Dawn raised her head along with everyone else as someone walked onto the grand balcony at the front of the room, although she didn't take part in the deafening cheer that followed. Meanwhile, from their hiding place, Barry and Lucas looked at each other again, this time in a mixture of wonder and dread: what was everyone cheering about all of a sudden? Barry pressed his forehead against the wall in front of him, wishing that he could see through it. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine the scene that he was missing out on. Then a calm but utterly compelling voice began to speak.

"Fellow members of Team Galactic! Hear me!_" _The crowd fell into an eerie silence at once, in complete unison, as though someone had simply turned down a volume switch somewhere. "My name, as I appear to you today, is Cyrus."

Barry's eyes flew open in surprise and he gasped aloud, earning him a sharp nudge from Lucas and a glare from Looker. But Barry didn't notice either, nor did he even realise that he'd made a sound. He had been transported back, flashback-like, to a day at Lake Verity. It was sometime towards the beginning of Spring when the snow had almost melted away completely. He had rushed through the trees, Dawn closely behind him. Someone had been standing at the lakeside, gazing down into the tranquil waters and muttering something. After the incident, Barry had laughed it off, but he still remembered everything that the stranger had said. _The flowing time, the expanding space...I will make it all mine one day. Cyrus is my name. Remember it._

Dawn no longer held that memory which she had shared with Barry, but she was already intrigued by Cyrus and his sheer presence, as she had been on that day. Like everyone else in the room, she was spellbound. Despite the hush from the audience and the way that the room carried every sound, Cyrus was using a microphone. Maybe this was so that he didn't have to raise his voice at all. It was probably his calmness that made him so mesmerising.

"This world of ours is a crude one. In a word, it is incomplete. It has been, and always will be, a struggle to survive in this world. We humans and Pokémon are likewise incomplete. Because we are all so lacking, we fight, we maim..." Cyrus paused to shake his head bitterly. "It is _ugly._ I hate the incompleteness. That we are all incomplete, I _hate_ it with my entire body and being."

Dawn found herself nodding slowly. His words made sense. She was incomplete, and she knew it. She _felt_ incomplete. Silently admitting it to herself was like letting go of a huge burden: although she suddenly felt helpless, she also felt weightless and relaxed. Still watching her closely, Jupiter noticed her arms unfolding and her shoulders dropping. Perhaps it was only a small gesture, but it was a very readable one. The commander smiled.

"The world should be complete. The world must change." Cyrus paused again, scanning the audience with his cold gaze as if waiting for a reaction. "Then, who will change it?" Another pause. This time, he smiled a little, although it was barely noticeable. "Me," he said quietly, answering his own question. "Cyrus."

The crowd came to life again with a wild roar. Dawn still didn't join them, but she blinked away a few tears that had come from nowhere. She would have said that her eyes were just watering, but there was a lump in her throat and she was fighting the urge to sob. She didn't understand her own reaction, but she guessed that it was something to do with letting go and admitting to her own incompleteness.

"And Team Galactic. Yes, all of you." The cheers intensified and Cyrus waited patiently. When there was a hush, he continued. "Together we pored over myths and exposed their secrets. Together we captured legendary Pokémon. And now, Team Galactic has obtained the energy to change the world!" The audience began to cheer again, but Cyrus merely spoke over them this time, his voice cutting through the din like a blade. "The power of dreams is within our grasp!"

Barry and Lucas gazed at each other gravely. They didn't need to say anything for both of them to realise that Cyrus must have been talking about whatever power he had gained from the capture of the three lake guardians. The atmosphere was electric, but they weren't feeling any excitement.

"Understand it, fellow members! My long-held dreamworld is on the verge of becoming reality. All those headed to Mt. Coronet, and those who remain here...though our missions may differ, our hearts beat as one. Let there be glory for Team Galactic!"

The auditorium was still filled with noise, even as Cyrus left the stage. The door was unlocked and the Grunts began to file out of the room, most of them in a semi-trance. Dawn lingered behind with Commander Jupiter, as she had been instructed. As the other members of Team Galactic walked past, she noticed that she wasn't the only one in tears, but those who obviously _were_ were trying to hide it, so Dawn did the same. She quickly wiped her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat. Jupiter laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"I think things are starting to make sense for you now," she said. "Am I right?"

Dawn could only nod. Satisfied with this answer, Jupiter led her out of the room. Above their heads, Barry had plucked up the courage to peer over the edge of the balcony now that everyone was gone. Thanks to the acoustics, he heard what Jupiter said and squinted suspiciously at the Grunt to whom she was talking. _Could it be...? _He didn't have much time to wonder. Looker was on the move again and Lucas was beckoning him to follow. Barry took one last glance over the balcony. The auditorium was completely deserted now. _It couldn't have been her, anyway. Memory or not, Dawn would never fall in with Team Galactic._


	7. And Jupiter Flips

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This chapter is a little longer, because I didn't want to break things up. I hope it's not too long!

* * *

**SEVEN**

"What do we do now?" Lucas asked as soon as they were out of the echo-inducing auditorium. He was chilled by what he had just heard, even though he didn't fully understand it. How did Cyrus intend to 'change the world'? Somehow, Lucas suspected that it wouldn't be a change for the better.

"That was their leader," Looker replied thoughtfully. "So, now I know the truth. And I must...yes, I must follow him. He mentioned the Coronet mountain." He set off walking purposefully down the corridor.

"But _we _can't go to Mount Coronet!" Barry protested, glancing at Lucas to make sure that he wasn't about to follow the detective.

"No, it will be too dangerous," Looker agreed. "I go alone." He beckoned with his arm. "Come, I will lead you out of this base and then – "

"We're not leaving until we've rescued the lake spirits," Lucas said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Don't worry about us, Mr. Looker. We've got our own Pokémon to protect us and we're not afraid to use them."

"I see. You are very brave. In that case, I bid you farewell – and good luck."

"Good luck to you, too," Barry murmured. He watched the tail end of Looker's brown leather coat disappearing around the corner. Then, turning to Lucas, he added, "He's gonna need it if he's going to Mount Coronet."

"Yeah, but what about us?" Lucas replied nervously. "How are we supposed to find three Pokémon in a place like this?"

"We start walking, we stick together and we hope we strike lucky." Barry grabbed one of the six Pokéballs from his belt and brandished it like a weapon. "And if anyone challenges us, we flatten them."

It didn't sound like much of a plan to Lucas, but they were in it together now. Trying his best to look brave and ready for anything, he nodded. _This is for Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf_, he reminded himself. _We can't let Team Galactic use them for evil. We failed to protect them at the lakes, but we can't fail now._

"Lead the way, then," Lucas muttered. Barry didn't need to be told; he was already off.

*****

"So..."

For a moment, Jupiter was trying to remember Dawn's name. She didn't think the girl had ever introduced herself properly, even though they had met at least once before Lake Acuity. Then a thought crossed her mind and she almost laughed. _Why am I trying to recall her name when she doesn't even know it herself? Besides, she won't be needing a name anymore._ The commander quickly put on a straight face to recover from her hesitation.

"What did you think of Master Cyrus?" she asked.

There were lots of small pleasures in life. Seeing this little brat, who had once been a thorn in Team Galactic's side, with such a look of awe and wonder on her face at the mere mention of Cyrus's name, was one of them. _She's ours now_, Jupiter thought smugly. _There's no doubt about that._ And the boss would be pleased. Oh, he wouldn't show it – of course not – but he had mentioned meeting this girl before, in Celestic Town. He'd barely described her, but Jupiter just _knew_ that it had to be this one. He would be happy enough that they had managed to neutralise a threat, but Jupiter had something else up her sleeve. Something even _better_.

"It was a brilliant speech," Dawn said at last.

"Would you like to meet him?"

"Who, m-me?" Dawn's jaw practically dropped to the floor and her eyes were huge with shock. "Meet Master Cyrus? B-but...!"

By now, they had reached the card-controlled gate that separated Cyrus's quarters from the rest of the building. Although Jupiter had been sure of what she was doing, she began to wonder whether it would be such a good idea. She bit her lip as she glanced towards the gate._ Maybe I'd better discuss it with him first._ The commander held up a hand to silence Dawn's ongoing protests.

"Wait here." She opened the gate and pointed a warning finger at the girl. "I mean it. Don't you _dare _move."

Dawn nodded again and folded her arms, making herself look as stiff as a statue. Jupiter still didn't trust her, but she gave her the benefit of the doubt and left her in the corridor while she continued alone to her boss's office. Everything was different beyond those stairs. Cyrus's quarters were luxurious and roomy, the dark blue walls and dimmed lighting making a welcome change from the endless white that covered the rest of the base. Jupiter found Cyrus in his office. He was gazing out of the window, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Master Cyrus..." Although her leader's back was turned, Jupiter still bowed as she entered the room. "If I could have just a quick word..."

"Yes," Cyrus replied at once, without turning around. "I wanted to congratulate you on your success at Lake Acuity."

"Actually, Sir, while we were there, something happened which I think you might find..." A tiny smile crinkled the edges of Jupiter's mouth. "...interesting."

"Continue."

"That girl chose to interfere again. The one who..." Jupiter was about to mention her own defeat at Eterna City, but decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to remind her boss of her past failings at a time like this.

"A heroic effort..." Cyrus began absent-mindedly, "...which you swiftly crushed, I hope." He glanced over his shoulder with the second half of his sentence.

"I did, Sir. Once and for all." Jupiter waited, knowing that her boss would ask. She was right.

"How did you do it?"

"I decided to see whether the legends about Uxie were true," the commander replied, her smile growing. "Seen as it was already under our control, I ordered it to attack. It would seem that, when it opened its eyes, it erased our would-be heroine's memory."

"What makes you so sure?"

"There was someone else there, a boy who claimed to be her friend. She didn't seem to remember him at all – "

"Could have been a fluke."

"...then she lashed out at her own Pokémon, discarded them in a state of confusion and fled into the woods."

"Then perhaps she was affected in some way," Cyrus said with an air of finality and a slight shrug. "But memory loss is difficult to measure." He fell silent for a moment, mentally playing out the story that Jupiter had just told him. "She ran off into the woods, did she?" Another brief silence, during which Jupiter was sure she heard a quiet laugh. "The weather there can be very harsh."

"She's still alive, Sir. In fact, she's here. But don't worry, your speech was enough to win her over."

Cyrus scowled. He'd had enough of pretending to be interested in what Jupiter was saying. He had only listened this far in order to keep up an appearance of having at least a sliver of concern about humanity. Really, it didn't matter anymore. Even if the legend about Uxie was _true_, it didn't matter. Why should he care about what the spirit Pokémon could do, or how they could affect the human race? He didn't intend to keep either around when his plan was complete. _Just a little longer._

"I see," he muttered.

Jupiter wasn't concerned at Cyrus's lack of enthusiasm. Since when was he enthusiastic about anything except for his ultimate goal? He was focused and single-minded, but this was an opportunity that he wouldn't want to miss.

"I was thinking that we should keep her around," Jupiter said. "She could be valuable. If we can prove that Uxie really does have the power to destroy a person's memory, we – forgive me, _you_ could perhaps use it as a weapon. Against anyone who might foolishly oppose you in the future. And since we also have the other two spirit Pokémon, maybe we could see whether the legends about _them_ are true in the same way."

Cyrus almost laughed. Poor Jupiter. She thought that she was being so incredibly helpful, but he was several steps ahead of her. He'd already considered using the lake guardians, forcing them to revoke the 'gifts' that they had given to humanity. It would have been a quick way to abolish all of the things that were wrong with the world. He could have erased all knowledge, emotion and willpower in an instant.

But then, he had spent so long wondering why he should bother to salvage the rest of the human race at all. With their emotions and desires, they were detestable. Without them, they were useless, nothing but empty shells. As soon as Cyrus controlled time and space, what could he possibly want or need from other people? The logical answer was to get rid of them altogether. That way, there would be no chance of opposition. But, of course, he wasn't about to unravel everything at such a crucial moment. He needed the commanders for the final stage of his plan.

"What you're saying is that we should keep her as a test subject," Cyrus said, just to make sure that he was theoretically on the same page as Jupiter.

"Precisely."

"I'll entrust that piece of research to you, then. Do what you want with the girl, as long as it keeps her out of our way."

*****

It was another long corridor, but there was something different about this one. It was lined with thick, transparent tubes in which something noxious and green was bubbling. The atmosphere, too, was different. It was much more sinister. Barry and Lucas walked down the corridor in silence, almost wishing that they_ would_ run into a member of Team Galactic: a battle might have made the place seem less creepy. Out of sheer curiosity, Barry took a closer look at one of the tubes. There was something floating in the green liquid. He realised that he wasn't so keen to find out what it was.

"I think we're getting close," he muttered. It was just a feeling that he had – not a very nice feeling, but a strong one.

At the end of the corridor lay a set of double doors, and beside them, one single door that was almost invisible: unlike all the others, it was white like the walls around it. The panel beside the double doors clearly read _Main Laboratory_. It was hardly a surprise. Lucas pulled a face. He hoped that the three lake Pokémon weren't anywhere nearby. If they were, he wasn't eager to find out why they had been brought to a laboratory. _Funny_, he thought. _I spend most of my time in a research lab and I've never felt as sick as I do now._

The two boys weren't about to go through those doors. They could hear people moving and talking on the other side. They had already battled a few Grunts along the way – or half-battled, rather, seen as the Grunts had all run away once they'd realised they couldn't win – and they were trying to conserve their Pokemon's energy in case there were some bigger Magikarp to fry. Barry was itching to meet Commander Jupiter again for the sake of revenge, but when he heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the double doors, he changed his mind.

"In here!" Lucas had already ducked through the white door nearby and Barry scurried after him.

They closed the door behind them just as a pair of scientists walked into the corridor – and stood right outside the room where the two intruders were hiding. Lucas looked around. They had ended up in some kind of apparatus closet, filled with spare lab coats and other things. He watched the pair of scientists through the keyhole, hoping that they weren't on their way to pick something up. But it didn't look as though they were doing anything except holding a conversation. The walls must have been very thin; Lucas could hear every word of what they were saying. They didn't sound very happy.

"I'll have to say something. I can't take this anymore."

"Well, it should be over now. They've got the red chains."

"But what are they going to _do_ with them? _That's_ what bothers me! If they use them for something dreadful, won't you feel bad?"

"I know what you're saying, but it shouldn't be our concern. It's in Cyrus's hands now."

"...and that _definitely _bothers me. There's something scary about him. I mean it."

The two scientists broke off their conversation as they became aware of a shadow that had fallen upon them. They followed it with their eyes and found themselves gazing at Commander Jupiter. They hadn't heard her approaching, but they could safely bet that she'd heard at least some of their conversation. One of them muttered her name in acknowledgement, but she replied only with a look of disdain. "Get inside," she ordered, glancing at the laboratory doors. "I need to speak to you. All of you, together. Is Commander Charon there?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The pair of scientists gravely returned to the laboratory with Jupiter close behind them. The atmosphere beyond those doors was sombre, unlike anything she had ever experienced before. For a moment, she was sure that something had gone tragically wrong and she hastily searched for the worst possible scenario, a bubble of fear expanding in her throat.

"What's happened?" she asked, her voice sounding higher-pitched than usual. "Where are the chains? Did you fail, after all this?"

Still hiding in the apparatus closet, Lucas had noticed another door, hidden behind a rack of aprons and coats. It must have led into the main laboratory. He tugged Barry's sleeve and pointed it out, and they both hid themselves behind the rack. Not only did it serve as a good hiding place, but it also allowed them to listen in on what was taking place in the lab. They could even watch through the keyhole if they wanted. They figured that nobody ever used this door, otherwise it wouldn't have been blocked. They were safe, for now.

"Everything went according to plan," a flat voice replied from the other end of the large laboratory. "Master Cyrus is already in possession of the two red chains."

Jupiter couldn't see the speaker; he was obscured by one of the three large machines that held the captured lake Pokémon. But she could recognise Charon's voice by now, even though he was the newest addition to the organisation's hierarchy. She let out her breath in relief, then clicked her tongue in annoyance.

"So, why the melancholy?" she snapped, gazing around the room at the grim-looking scientists, some of whom had already removed their white coats. "Or is it just tiredness?"

"Commander." One of the scientists stepped forward. He was a reasonably young man, maybe not much more than thirty. He didn't look particularly brave; he was almost wringing his hands. "I'm sorry, but some of us really feel that – "

"Stop right there," Jupiter interrupted, holding her hand up and rolling her eyes at him. "I don't care what you're feeling."

"See what I've been putting up with all night?" Charon complained with a dramatic wave of his hands. "They think too much, all of them!"

"We think too much?" Another scientist, this one a middle-aged woman, took off the protective eye-wear that was hanging around her neck and threw it to the floor. "We thought we were being employed to research alternative forms of energy! Not _this_!"

"You're getting paid, aren't you?" Jupiter asked. "I don't see the problem."

"Cyrus's money is covered in innocent blood!" There was a loud crash as someone knocked a rack of glass tubes from a nearby desk. "We don't want it!"

Within the cupboard, Barry and Lucas looked at each other in alarm. They could only imagine what might have been happening to those poor Pokémon if even the _scientists_ were making statements like that.

"Did you ever consider taking up drama instead of science?" Commander Jupiter asked with a sarcastic laugh. "I think you'd do much better."

"This isn't science, Commander. It's torture. Just look at the Pokémon!"

As much as she tried to remain calm and collected, Jupiter had a hair-trigger temper. She regarded it as her biggest weakness, but it was often the only thing that kept the Grunts in line if they continued to push her buttons. She wasn't even in control of it; she would simply lose it, without warning. She had just passed that point.

"Enough!" she yelled.

"I agree," said one of the scientists, too sickened and tired to be intimidated by her sudden rage. "I've had enough. I'm quitting."

"No, you're not!" Jupiter turned around and slammed the double doors behind her with so much force that the metal cabinets on the wall shook violently. Barry had his ear pressed to the closet door and winced as he felt the vibration. "Nobody is leaving this room! Our work here isn't done yet!"

"But, Commander, we extracted the crystals! What else do you – "

"I must agree with my colleague," Charon said, shuffling forward in order to speak to Jupiter properly, face-to-face. He looked at her in concern. "We have been working all night. What more does Master Cyrus want?"

"Forget the Pokémon," Jupiter replied. "We're finished with them. I've been put in charge of a different experiment." There was an uncomfortable silence. Jupiter was enjoying it, but she continued. "There was an incident at Lake Acuity in which a young girl made eye contact with Uxie. I'm sure you've heard the old legend about what that means, but we want scientific proof. We also want to know what the other two lake guardians can do. We need you to study her – "

"Uxie?" Charon turned around to glance at the machine which held the Pokémon in question. "But we already – "

"No! The girl!"

"Who is this girl? How old is she?"

"She's...it doesn't matter!" Annoyed at the lack of response from everyone else in the room, Jupiter put on her most patronising voice and spoke with exaggerated clarity, as if addressing a group of children. "She's not one of us. She's against us. She's an enemy. A nobody. Is that enough information for you?"

"But..." Charon began hesitantly.

Jupiter's shoulders suddenly dropped and her face became deadly calm. In her tempestuous rage, this was the eye of the storm, a brief respite before the final surge. "What?" she asked quietly. "What were you about to say?"

"Commander, with all due respect, she may be an enemy, but she's still a human being."

"Are you arguing with me, Commander Charon?" Jupiter gritted her teeth at the old man's silence. She repeated her question, much more slowly this time. "Are _you_ arguing...with_ me_?"

"Pokémon are one thing, Commander Jupiter, but I do draw the line at experimenting on living people. We can't – "

"You'll do whatever is necessary!"

Despite the rising hurricane of a woman standing in front of him, Charon was determined to finish his sentence. "We can't do anything without her consent."

"_Consent_!?" Jupiter half-screamed, as if she had never heard the word before in her life. "If she doesn't consent, you knock her out! Sedate her! I don't know, you're supposed to be scientists! Find a way!"

"Commander, please! What you're asking us to do is so horribly unethical – "

"Our Master is on the verge of creating a new world for all of us! We eliminate what we don't need, and we certainly _don't_ need..." Jupiter seized the nearest thing, which just so happened to be a clipboard on the table next to her. She flung it at one of the scientists. "...pathetic_ cowards _like yourselves! If _you_ don't want to be eliminated in the _very near future_, I suggest that you pull yourselves together and start doing your jobs without complaining!"

She stepped back, breathless in the aftermath of her outburst, almost hating herself for allowing it to happen but certainly hating the people in that room for witnessing it – and _causing_ it. Behind her, the door opened and a female Grunt put her head into the laboratory, very cautiously. She had probably heard Jupiter's shrieking from the other end of the building.

"Commander Jupiter," she said in a small voice, "Master Cyrus is waiting for you. He says that he wants to leave at once."

Jupiter didn't turn around. She waved a hand, silently telling the messenger to leave. A half-hearted flicker of anger flashed in her eyes, but she didn't have the energy to express it properly. "I'd hoped that you would make a start on this immediately," she said. "Thanks to your stupid arguments, it will have to wait until we return from Mount Coronet." Despite what had just taken place, she gave her fellow commander a nod of acknowledgement before she left, but as she closed the doors behind her, she broke into a laugh and added, "If Master Cyrus chooses to keep any of you alive."

The stunned scientists in the laboratory didn't hear her closing comment; they were all too busy contemplating what she had said _before_ that. At last, one of them asked, "Do you think she was being serious?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," Charon replied with a shake of his head. "But let us forget about it for now. She's gone to Mount Coronet with the others, so we can rest awhile."

The commander ushered his team towards the door with a sweep of both hands. Muttering their agreements, the scientists filed out of the laboratory like a funeral procession. As soon as their footsteps had died away down the corridor, Barry and Lucas pulled the rack of lab coats away from the door and burst into the empty laboratory.

"Did you hear that?" Barry asked, his shoulders heaving as if he was about to be sick. "They've got Dawn! And they're going to...!"

"Not if we find her first."


	8. Saving Spirits

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm back at university now and doing a lot of work for my dissertation, so updates might be a bit less frequent e.g. once every couple of weeks. But I do have the rest of this story planned out and I've already started the next chapter, so don't worry, I won't be abandoning it at all :)

* * *

**EIGHT**

"Barry? What's wrong?" They were still in the laboratory, and the blonde-haired boy looked as though he was deep in thought, possibly even feeling guilty about something. Lucas wasn't the impatient type, but even _he_ knew that this was the worst time to be hesitating. "Come on, we need to find Dawn!"

"I might have seen her," Barry muttered, his gaze firmly fixed to his own feet. "And I didn't do anything."

"Huh?" Lucas stared at him. They hadn't seen anyone except for a few Team Galactic lackeys. "When?"

"After Cyrus had given his speech, I saw that Commander – the one from the lake – talking to someone. I keep thinking that it might have been Dawn, but..." Barry shook his head. "I hope it wasn't. She was dressed like one of them." Taking Lucas's lack of a response as a disagreement, Barry glared at him. "She wouldn't join Team Galactic! No way!"

"But...Barry, she doesn't know who she is anymore," Lucas said awkwardly. "We don't really know _what_ she'd do."

"I do!" Barry argued. "She's been my friend for years! I grew up with her!"

Lucas sighed. He didn't see the point in arguing about this. Barry seemed to care about Dawn a lot. Unfortunately, that also meant that, if she had really lost her _identity_, he would have to deal with the grief. Avoiding eye contact with the other boy, Lucas began to gaze around the laboratory, and his eyes were automatically drawn to the three large machines that dominated the room. He wandered over to the nearest one and his stomach turned. Through a glass panel, he could see Mesprit. It was shuddering as if it was cold – or as though it was in pain. Its eyes were only partially open, and Lucas's heart sank at the way the Pokémon flinched away from the glass when it saw him. It must have been terrified.

"Barry..."

Sensing from Lucas's tone of voice that this was something serious, Barry came to join him and peered into the machine. From above and below, there were wires leading into the compartment where Mesprit was contained. Barry hoped he was wrong, but they seemed to be going into the Pokemon's body. Their ends were secured and covered with band-aids which only partially hid the surrounding burns. The wires were concentrated around Mesprit's head and the end of its tail, and Barry realised why. In the pictures he had seen, Mesprit was supposed to have distinctive red crystals on its body in those places. They were no longer there.

"Those sick, twisted...! How could they?" Barry was so disgusted and angry, he couldn't even speak properly. He spat his words out ungracefully, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and ran towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Lucas asked in surprise. "We need to set them free!"

"We have to find Dawn!" Barry pointed a shaking finger towards the machine that held Mesprit. "I won't let her end up like that! Never!"

*****

Dawn sighed and walked around in a small circle yet again. She was sure that she was starting to wear a groove in the floor with her pacing, but Commander Jupiter had told her to stay there. But that had been _ages _ago. Dawn's excitement about the prospect of meeting Master Cyrus had already faded; from the length of time it was taking the commander to return, it was quite clear that it wasn't going to happen. _Why did she need to get my hopes up? Horrible woman. And what am I supposed to do if she doesn't come back? Stand here forever?_

With a roll of her eyes, Dawn returned to the exact same spot in which Jupiter had left her, glaring impatiently at the door through which she had disappeared. The commander didn't reappear, but Dawn saw something else that completely distracted her attention. Running down the corridor were two boys. She noticed them first because they weren't wearing Team Galactic uniforms, and secondly because she recognised one of them. She gasped. It was the crazy one from the lake, the one who had grabbed her and insisted that he knew her. She looked around, frantically searching for somewhere to hide, but he had already seen her – and he looked angry.

"Hey! Galactic person! We're looking for someone, and you're gonna tell us where she..." As he drew closer, Barry noticed the look of shock on the Grunt's face. Then he took a proper look at her features, and his horror was enough to stop him in his tracks. "_Dawn_?"

Lucas caught up to him and recognised Dawn at once through the hair and the uniform. Despite what he had said to Barry in the lab, he couldn't help but say something. "Gee, Dawn...what are you doing, dressed like that?"

Dawn stared at Lucas from head to toe and back again, angrily mimicking the way he had just looked at her. "And who are you?" she demanded.

"Wow, she really did lose her memory," Lucas muttered.

"Dawn, it's me!" Even though his last attempt to make Dawn remember him hadn't gone very well, Barry couldn't resist trying again. He reminded himself not to lay a hand on her this time. "Do you remember me yet? I've got your Pokémon with me! I'll bet they're all missing you." _Speaking of Pokémon, _he thought, _where are Shinx and Noctowl?_

"I know you," Dawn replied coolly. "You're the crazy guy from the lake."

"_I'm not crazy_!"

"How did you get here?" Lucas asked, genuinely interested to find out.

"It's a long story," Dawn replied, not wanting to rehash everything that had happened yesterday. "I found my way here eventually." There was a strange hint of contentment in her voice, as if she had found her way home. "What are_ you _doing here?"

"We came to save you!" Barry answered. "Oh, and the lake Pokémon, too." He glanced at Lucas guiltily. "Maybe we should have set them free."

Dawn's brow creased in confusion when Barry mentioned the lake Pokémon, but she turned up her nose in scorn at the notion of being 'saved'. "I don't need saving," she said firmly. "I belong here."

"Don't be silly. These guys are out of their minds! I mean, did you hear the speech?"

"Yes, I did, and – "

"Do you...?" Barry slapped his own forehead. "Ugh, no, you don't. I know you don't remember, but we met that Cyrus guy a long time ago at Lake Verity. I told you he was a psycho! But I guess you don't remember that either, so there's no fun in saying I told you so."

"Hey!" Dawn raised her fist angrily. "Don't talk about Master Cyrus like that!"

"_Master_ Cyrus?" Barry stared at his friend, unsure whether he should laugh hysterically or take her by the lapels of her shiny new uniform and shake her like a Team Galactic ragdoll. "What's gotten into you, Dawn?"

Lucas sighed. It was pretty obvious what had happened, and Barry's jibes weren't going to change anything. Dawn had been thoroughly brainwashed. Lucas didn't know how to fix it, but he knew that they weren't going to get anywhere by standing in the corridor and arguing. He quickly stepped between Barry and Dawn and addressed the latter.

"Yeah, it was a great speech," he said quickly, trying his best to sound casual. "So, what are you doing now?"

"I'm waiting for Commander Jupiter," Dawn replied. Barry groaned at the sound of that name and she looked at him suspiciously, but chose to ignore him this time. "She told me to stay here."

"But...hasn't she gone to Mount Coronet with everyone else?" Lucas asked.

Dawn shook her head, although she didn't look very sure. "No," she replied uncertainly, "I think she went to talk to Master Cyrus."

"...who has gone to Mount Coronet," Lucas concluded. "Sorry, Dawn. Looks like you've been stood up."

Dawn was visibly disappointed. "Great," she muttered. "Well, when will they be back? What am I supposed to do until then?"

"Come with us. We've got something to show you." Taking care not to come across as too aggressive, Lucas took Dawn by the arm in a gentlemanly way, gave Barry a meaningful glance and began to walk back in the direction of the laboratory.

"But what if...?" Dawn began.

"I'm telling you, everyone's gone to Mount Coronet. There's no point in waiting around here."

Dawn huffed angrily, but allowed herself to be led away from her waiting spot. She said nothing, but it was obvious from her body language – the way she began to raise her head and not drag her feet quite so much – that she was becoming more curious as they neared the laboratory. By the time they got there, she had let go of Lucas's arm and was walking between him and Barry freely, with no complaints. Lucas opened the blue double doors into the laboratory and the lights came on automatically.

"Go and take a look in one of those machines."

"Hmm?"

Lucas pointed to the nearest machine, the one that held Mesprit, and Dawn nervously walked towards it, glancing back over her shoulder at her two 'tour guides' now and again as if she was afraid of walking into a trap. But as soon as she caught sight of the pitiful Pokémon within the machine, her hand flew to her mouth in horror.

"Do you know why Jupiter thought Cyrus would be interested in you?" Lucas asked grimly. Dawn shook her head. She'd been wondering about that very question herself. "It's because they wanted to use you like they used these Pokémon. For their so-called _research_."

"But..." Dawn began to protest, but she couldn't argue with what lay before her eyes. "But I thought..."

Barry was about to say something, but Lucas nudged him in the ribs and cut him off. He was watching Dawn intently, noticing every flicker on her face as she stared into the machine. He could practically see the conflict being fought out in her eyes, and he wanted it to take its course. Someone may have managed to brainwash her, but there was nothing like a dosage of truth as a short and sharp antidote.

"I thought he wanted to create a better world," Dawn said at last, her voice sombre and hollow, as if she was choking back tears. She slowly sank to the floor at the foot of the machine.

"Sorry, Dawn."

Without warning, Dawn leapt to her feet. For a moment, Lucas worried that she was about to attack him for destroying her illusions, but she didn't. She ran towards one of the dusty windows and picked up a long pole that was leaning against the wall. It had a small brass hook on the end, for prying open windows that were beyond reach. But Dawn wasn't planning on opening any windows. She returned to the machine, gripped the pole in both hands and swung it like a baseball bat.

"Dawn, no!" Lucas caught the other end of it just in time. "Not like that! There has to be another way."

Dawn let the pole clatter to the floor and began to search the machine at once, looking for anything, a switch or a latch, that might cause it to open. Lucas ran to the next machine. Within its confines, Azelf was fighting to free itself, hurling bolts of energy at the glass even though they rebounded every time. Frowning at the sight of its distress, Lucas did the same as Dawn and frantically looked for a way to release the Pokémon.

Barry, however, did not go anywhere near the machine that held Uxie. Instead, he ran to a fourth machine. This one was mounted on the wall and looked like some sort of control station. At the centre of its keypad was a large red button. _This is either the right button, or it'll cause a global disaster._ Deciding that he had no choice except to try, Barry closed his eyes and hit it with his fist. His friends stepped back as the lights on the machines went out and the glass panels retracted. With a cry of triumph, Dawn was about to reach in and grab Mesprit, but the Pokémon zoomed away just in time. She didn't know it, but she'd narrowly escaped losing all of her emotions along with her memory.

"The window!" Lucas suggested.

Dawn picked up the pole again and this time used it to open one of the windows. The three lake Pokémon turned into shining orbs of pink, yellow and blue and shot out of the lab at once. Their saviours watched them leave and took a few moments to think about what they'd just done. Lucas eventually broke the silence.

"Great job, Barry. I didn't even notice that other machine."

"Yeah, I did good," Barry agreed, never one to be very modest, "but what about Mount Coronet?"

"You said we couldn't go to Mount Coronet," Lucas reminded him.

"Because we needed to find Dawn. We've found her now." Barry turned to Dawn with a sigh. "Seen as you really don't know who we are, my name's Barry. That's Lucas. And you're Dawn."

"If you say so," Dawn replied with a bewildered shrug. "But what were you saying about Mount Coronet? What's happening there?"

"I don't know, but I think we should go and find out."

Barry darted towards the door and, to his immense relief, Dawn followed him. Lucas brought up the rear, shaking his head in protest. "But Looker said it was too dangerous, and we really shouldn't get in his way – "

"Come on, Lucas!" Barry replied enthusiastically. "We're together now, all three of us! We can take on anything!"

"We_ lost_ at the lakes, remember? What if _all_ the commanders have gone to Mount Coronet? How are we supposed to beat them? And what about Cyrus?" Lucas felt his own face turning pale. "I'm not battling against Cyrus!"

"Dawn's the toughest," Barry answered. "She can – "

But, of course, Dawn couldn't. Barry stopped walking so suddenly that she nearly ran into the back of him. His heart had been soaring just a second ago; now it was somewhere in his stomach. He'd been brimming with confidence at the thought of what the three of them could do together. After all, they weren't bad trainers. But he'd forgotten that Dawn was so _different _now. His troubled gaze fell upon a nearby bookcase, hidden away in a corner, and he practically leapt upon it, seizing books and examining them with alarming speed. None of them looked particularly short or sweet. Finally, he pulled out two of the smaller ones: _Basic Battle Strategy _and _A Brief Technique Encyclopaedia_ and thrust them into Dawn's arms.

"I don't think we'll change Cyrus's mind by reading to him," she said sarcastically.

"They're for you. I know you like reading."

"Do I?"

"It's a long way to Mount Coronet, so you've got time for a crash course."

"In _what_?" Dawn almost screamed as she followed him down the corridor. "You want me to read both of these? How is any of this going to help?"

"Uxie only wiped out your memory, so all you need to do is re-learn what you need in order to battle, right?"

"A _battle_? You really are crazy, mister."

"A Pokémon battle," Barry added, in case Dawn had come to the wrong conclusion. "I'm not expecting you to beat anyone up yourself...although I wouldn't stop you from trying."

"But I don't know the first thing about Pokémon battles!"

"That's why you're gonna read those on the way to Mount Coronet."

"And which Pokémon am I going to use? I don't have any!"

"Yes, you do." Barry glanced at her and realised, again, that Shinx and Noctowl were nowhere in sight. "Where are they?"

"What?"

"Shinx and...!" He growled in exasperation. "I sent two of your Pokémon to follow you. Where are they?"

"I don't..." Dawn suddenly remembered her joyride in the back of the Team Galactic van. "Oh, wait! There _was_ a Pokémon, a little blue one...but they took it!" She looked at Barry in fear. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know that they treated Pokémon like that! If I knew, I would _never_ have let them – "

"It sounds like she's talking about Shinx," Lucas interrupted, giving Dawn an apologetic glance. "We should try to find it."

"I know, but...what about Team Galactic?" Barry asked, practically jumping up and down on the spot in his impatience. "They'll be way ahead of us by now. They've got helicopters, you know! I've seen 'em!"

The three friends looked at each other in dubious silence, unsure of what to do. At last, Dawn sighed. "Maybe I should just stay here," she said. "I don't think I'm going to be much help when we get to that Coronet place. And these books look really technical." She flicked through _A Brief Technique Encyclopaedia_ and baulked at its long list of Pokémon attacks and abilities which, to her, looked like lists of pure nonsense. "How am I supposed to learn all of this? I don't even understand it! No, I should stay behind. If there are any other Pokémon around, I'll find them and set them free myself." She sifted a hand through the artificial hair on her head and giggled. "I mean, I blend in enough, don't I?"

They were huddled together closely, and so busy debating their plan of action, that they didn't hear the footsteps drawing nearer. Then Barry noticed a strange shadow on the wall behind Dawn, and he jumped in alarm. When he turned around, he came face-to-face with an unfamiliar member of Team Galactic – another commander, presumably, judging from his non-standard uniform and his blue hair which was reminiscent of a Purugly's upright ears.

"So," the stranger said in a quiet voice that wasn't entirely unlike that of Cyrus, "you came here to save some Pokémon, did you? Am I to presume that you were responsible for freeing the lake spirits?"

"That's right," Barry replied boldly.

"And what have we here?" The man's gaze fell upon Dawn, who was still very much in uniform. "A master of disguise? Or just a traitor?"

"Leave her alone!" Barry snapped, laying a protective hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who are you?"

"I'm Commander Saturn."

"You can't be much of a commander if they left you here. What's wrong? You weren't good enough to go to Mount Coronet, huh?" Barry was hoping that his scathing remarks would anger Saturn into a battle, but when the commander barely even raised an eyebrow, he decided to cut to the chase. "Come on, then! Let's see how tough you are!"

"I'm with you if you want a tag battle," Lucas muttered.

Commander Saturn gave a nonchalant shrug and took one of the four Pokéballs from his belt. "Well, seen as you've taken the trouble to come here..."


	9. The Other Commander

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Ooh, a battle scene at last! Actually, I don't like writing these things much, so I'm sorry if it sucks. As I said in the last chapter's AN, university is busy but the next chapter is in the works! I decided to start using chapter titles because I was sick of the plain old numbers...what do you think? I'm bad at thinking of titles, so any better suggestions are welcome...

**A PLUG: **By the way, if you're looking for a place to discuss all things related to fanfiction-writing and fan-works in general, you might be interested in a great forum. You can find it at fanbbs dot net and it's already very active, so please check it out :)

**AND ANOTHER: **...also, I wrote a spur-of-the-moment semi-creepy BetelgeuseShipping (sort of, not really...) one-shot. It's called _Incomplete_. The link is in my profile. Hint hint wink wink!

* * *

**NINE**

Barry was very aware of the fact that he and his friends were cornered. He was more than ready to battle against Saturn, but he didn't relish the idea of being trapped. He had already taken his first Pokéball and was tapping it against his leg anxiously. "Give us some room, then. We can't battle in this little corner."

To his surprise, Saturn backed away with a sarcastic smile. "Is that enough space for you?"

Barry immediately pushed Dawn away – and Lucas, too, seen as he was standing close behind her. "Quick, go and find Shinx!"

"But...!" Lucas thought that Barry might have taken up his offer of a tag battle. He could hardly hide his disappointment at being shooed away.

"I'll be fine!" Barry insisted. "This guy looks weak. Go!" Glancing at the Pokéball in his hand, he threw it dramatically. "And go, Heracross!"

"Let's see." Saturn smiled and released a Pokémon of his own. "Golbat, Air Cutter!"

For one second, Golbat was just a stream of red light from a Pokéball; the next, it was hurtling straight towards Barry's Heracross. The boy usually reacted quickly, but Golbat's attack was so fast that the confident smile had only just faded from Barry's face before it hit. The bug Pokémon went down at once and Barry stared at it in blank shock.

"What just happened?" he muttered under his breath.

Much louder, he made a frustrated noise and withdrew his Pokémon with an angry stamp of his foot. The anger was directed at himself. At least one Gym Leader had already warned him about insisting on being the one to start a battle; sometimes it was better to hold back, wait and see where the opponent was going before deciding to make a move. That just wasn't Barry's style, and he knew that he could never heed that advice, but he sorely wished that he had, just this once. Less than two seconds was a pitiful length of time for a battle round to last.

"Alright, then..." Barry replaced Heracross's Pokéball and took hold of the one next to it. "Floatzel! Quick Attack!"

The water Pokémon gave a bark of exertion as it raced towards Golbat and took a flying leap into the air. The bat Pokémon looked heavy and was hovering not very far above the ground, making it a fairly easy target. But Saturn was well aware of that.

"Poison Fang," he said calmly.

Just as Floatzel was about to make contact, Golbat turned aside slightly, making its would-be attacker miss the mark. As it passed, Golbat clamped down on its side with its teeth. It was so fast that Barry didn't even realise his Pokémon had been hurt until it landed with a cry of pain.

"Floatzel! Are you okay?" Floatzel was beginning to lick its wound, but at the sound of its trainer's voice, it rose up again with a wince. "Come on, you can do it! Water Gun!"

"Give it a Bite attack, Golbat."

"Not this time!" Barry shouted over the sound of his Pokemon's powerful water attack.

The jet struck Golbat full on as it was zooming to attack with its fangs bared. As if taking revenge for the previous attack, Floatzel kept up the blast of water until its opponent was pinned against the wall and probably half-drowned, too. If he hadn't been battling against someone from Team Galactic, Barry might have told his Pokémon to stop by now.

"Golbat, fight back with Pursuit!" Saturn ordered, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice at last.

Golbat raised one of its wings to cover its face and partially block Floatzel's Water Gun. No longer trapped against the wall, it fell to the floor and charged towards Floatzel on its feet. Running didn't seem to be its strong point, especially now that it was drenched with water. It looked weak and clumsy. Barry decided to take his chance.

"Finish it with Quick Attack!"

Although Floatzel was still getting its breath back, it sprung into action and lashed out at Golbat with one claw. It wasn't a very strong attack, but it was enough to take the bat Pokémon down. Saturn withdrew his Golbat with a shrug and selected his next Pokéball.

"This shouldn't take too long," he said smoothly.

"Huh?"

Wondering what he meant, Barry glanced at Floatzel. It was no longer standing upright but had fallen on all fours and was shaking violently, as though it was on the verge of passing out. _It must be poisoned_, Barry realised. He felt a stab of panic, but he had no Antidotes or Potions, so what else could he do but carry on?

"Hang in there, buddy," he whispered.

"Let's roll out the big guns," Saturn said, smiling as his next Pokémon appeared beside him. "Toxicroack, Faint Attack!"

Barry could tell that this was Saturn's strongest Pokémon and that they both meant business. He was about to give a counter-order to Floatzel, but Toxicrock suddenly vanished. A second later, it reappeared directly in front of Floatzel and slashed it violently with one of the prongs on the back of its hand. The blow sent Floatzel reeling and it collapsed at Barry's feet.

"Floatzel..."

It was rare that Barry took time out in the middle of a battle to make sure that his Pokémon were okay – not that he didn't care, but he was usually in too much of a rush – but this time, he knelt beside Floatzel and gently touched its fur. The bite wound on its side looked like it was going to need treating. Wiping his brow with his sleeve, Barry stood up and withdrew his fainted Pokémon. Before grabbing another Pokéball from his belt, he surveyed Saturn's strong-looking Toxicroack thoughtfully.

"You look like you're considering a forfeit," Saturn remarked, holding his hands behind his back. "I think it might be a good idea. If you care about your Pokémon, that is."

"It'd be an_ insult _to my Pokémon if I surrendered to the likes of you!" Barry replied furiously. He took hold of the Pokéball that was nearest to his right hand and threw it. "Torterra, it's your turn!"

It was only right that he matched Saturn's star Pokémon with his own: he had raised this Pokémon from a tiny Turtwig. In fact, he'd received it at the same time as Dawn had obtained her Piplup, and from the same person, too. Barry found himself wondering what Professor Rowan was doing, but now wasn't the time to get distracted.

"Have it your way," Saturn said. "Poison Jab."

"Torterra, look out!"

Torterra might have been strong, but it wasn't very fast, and its huge shell tended to get in its way sometimes. Toxicroak obviously knew what it was doing: it attacked from behind and from above, its single claw shining as it descended through the air. Then it emitted a grunt of surprise: its claw was stuck in Torterra's shell, and the large grass Pokémon barely lifted its head in response. Barry grinned. That cumbersome shell could be pretty useful, too.

"Alright, Torterra! Bite attack!"

While Toxicroak was trying to free its claw, Torterra lifted its head, turned around and locked its jaw around its opponent's arm. Toxicroak's grumbles of frustration coalesced into a yelp, and the pain gave it the extra motivation to yank itself free. It retreated towards Saturn, nursing its arm.

"Don't even think about hesitating. Faint Attack, now!"

"Uh-oh," Barry muttered, knowing that Torterra was much too slow to avoid an attack as quick as that. He was right, and this time, Toxicroak aimed for the back of Torterra's neck, where its shell ended. In desperation, he called out, "Torterra, use Absorb!"

A faint green light surrounded Toxicroack, supposedly showing the energy that was being drained from its body to heal Torterra. But it didn't seem to be making much difference, and Toxicroak continued to attack, slashing at Torterra's exposed head with its uninjured arm. Barry was chewing his lip so hard, it might have bled. _Why did I never teach it how to properly use Withdraw?_ he wondered desperately. He knew the answer. He'd never had any patience for non-offensive moves. His anger came out in a pained sigh as Torterra's legs gave way beneath it and Toxicroak jabbed the air in triumph.

"Ugh..." Barry withdrew his Torterra and picked yet another Pokéball from his belt. "Rapidash."

In contrast to Barry's slumped shoulders and hopeless expression, Rapidash was raring to go. It reared up with a neigh and pummelled Toxicroack with its front hooves before its trainer had even given a command. Out of all Barry's Pokémon, this was his most recent catch, and the one least likely to obey him. But as long as it was going to attack, Barry decided that it could do whatever the heck it wanted.

"Poison Jab!"

Toxicroak raised its arm with an angry roar and charged towards Rapidash, but the fire horse Pokémon charged right back, its flaming mane and tail combining into one huge wheel of fire. Toxicroak saw it coming and sprang out of the way just in time, receiving only a few burns rather than a full-on scorching, but Rapidash came around full circle and charged again.

"Stop running away and attack!" Saturn commanded.

Toxicroak rolled out of the way of Rapidash's second charge and swung its claw in a sweeping motion. The fire Pokémon tripped and staggered, and its Flame Wheel attack came to an end at last. Its front leg was wobbling slightly as it tried to regain its balance, and Barry only hoped that it hadn't been poisoned. He had already used four Pokémon against Saturn's pair. That might have been cheating, but this was a desperate situation – and besides, neither of the trainers had laid down any rules. Barry decided to see if his Rapidash was in an obedient mood.

"Rapidash, Tail Whip!" His Pokémon snorted and tossed its head before charging towards Toxicroak yet again. "I guess it likes using Flame Wheel," Barry muttered to himself.

It was a good thing that Rapidash had decided to do its own thing: this time, it hit Toxicroack properly, with enough force to send the poison Pokémon flying a few metres through the air. It wasn't unconscious, but as it limped back to its trainer with a weak croak, Saturn decided that it wasn't going to be much more use. With a frown of disapproval, he put it back into its Pokéball. Barry noticed that he only had one other Pokémon, and he shifted his weight in nervous anticipation as it was released.

"Bronzor, Shadow Ball."

"Haha, we've got it!" Barry said, even while a ball of dark energy was forming in front of Bronzor. Steel Pokémon couldn't stand up to Rapidash's fire, and as far as he was concerned, that was all that mattered. "Watch out, Rapidash!" Rapidash ducked as the Shadow Ball came hurtling towards its head. Barry had to do the same. "Hey!" he squealed. "You're the Pokémon! You're meant to be protecting me here!"

Rapidash seemed to give him a disdainful glare. It scratched the floor with its hoof, making a horrible screeching sound, but it didn't make any move to attack. Raising an eyebrow, Barry tried again. "Uh...Ember?"

Rapidash swung its tail and head, sending small wisps of fire in Bronzor's direction. The steel Pokémon dodged most of them, but there were patches of glowing red on its body here and there where it had been hit. It didn't have a very detailed face, and its voice was little more than a metallic hum, but Barry guessed that it was probably hurt.

"Another Shadow Ball, Bronzor!"

"Ember again! Even better this time!" But Rapidash had already set off on another charge, and Barry shook his head. "Fine, then. Use Flame Wheel."

Instead of just charging on its feet, Rapidash leapt up this time, like a show-horse clearing an obstacle. It threw its head back forcefully like a soccer player heading a ball. Bronzor was scorched with its fiery mane and clattered to the floor loudly. It was out for the count, but Rapidash reared up again, about to deliver a Stomp attack. Fortunately for Bronzor, its trainer withdrew it just in time and Rapidash's hooves hit nothing except the floor.

"You used one more Pokémon than I did," Saturn pointed out sourly. "But I suppose all's fair in love and war." His gaze wandered beyond his opponent and he narrowed his eyes. "I see your friends found their way back."

Barry turned his head and grinned triumphantly at the sight of Dawn and Lucas coming down the corridor. Shinx was following its trainer closely, almost getting tangled between her feet as she walked. As soon as his friends were within earshot, Barry let out a hoot of laughter, just to make it clear that he had won. "So, what do I get for winning? I think you should tell us exactly where Cyrus is heading, and what he plans to do when he gets there."

"Oh, is that what you were hoping?" Although he was smiling, Saturn cast a wary glance towards Barry's Rapidash, still standing in front of him and snorting angrily, as though it was just waiting for a command. "I'm afraid you're asking the wrong person."

"What? But I thought you were a commander!"

"Our boss keeps his cards close to his chest. I know that he crafted a red chain from crystals he took from the three Pokémon. That red chain is what he needed to shackle something on Mount Coronet. It's also apparently needed for creating something."

"You're not making any sense!" Barry complained. "For a start, Mount Coronet is huge. What's he gonna do? Climb to the top?"

"Our leader will be travelling to a set of ruins located on the peak of the mountain, a place known as the Spear Pillar. But that's all I know." Saturn's smile turned wistful and he shrugged. "Who knows what he's planning to do up there? But, by all means, go and find out for yourself. I don't think it will make much difference."

Visibly unimpressed with this answer, Barry scowled as he withdrew his Rapidash. He turned to his friends. "So, what do you reckon? Should we – "

"Now, Toxicroak! Get them!"

The three friends turned around in alarm and Dawn shrieked at the sight of Saturn's Toxicroak rushing towards them, poised to deliver some sort of attack with its deadly claw. Lucas grabbed one of the Pokéballs from his belt. "Monferno!" he yelled desperately.

The small fire Pokémon emerged at once and delivered a surprisingly powerful Flamethrower attack to stop Toxicroak dead. Seen as it had already been weakened in battle, the poison Pokémon couldn't take much more and it quickly crumpled to the floor – unconscious, this time. Barry's eyes were the size of teacups and he was hyperventilating.

"Let that be a lesson," he whispered breathlessly. "It's not over until they're all knocked out!"

After taking Toxicroak back into its Pokéball, Saturn turned heel and walked away. Lucas quickly withdrew Monferno and began to bolt after the Galactic Commander, but Barry grabbed his shoulder. The two boys exchanged glances, both of them aware of how strange it was for Barry to be the one holding Lucas back. Their nervous tension from what had just happened faded away, and soon they were both doubled over in laughter.

"What's so funny?" Dawn demanded. "We nearly got killed!"

"But we didn't," Lucas replied. "Thanks to my Monferno."

"Yeah, yeah, nice move," Barry said. He'd never been very good at giving praise, even when it was definitely due. "Now, come on! Let's get going! If we're late to Mount Coronet and it's because of you two Slowpokes, I'm fining you both!"


	10. Revision

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Pokémon. All characters herein belong to Nintendo. I'm just a fan having a bit of non-profit fun and exercising my lazy imagination...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Wow, this story is turning out longer than I initially expected. We're definitely more than halfway there, I'll say that much. But I'm sorry this chapter is a little uneventful, compared to previous ones (maybe). It will get better, I promise...

* * *

**TEN**

Barry was in such a rush, Lucas had to remind him that he'd just taken part in a Pokémon battle. At once, Barry remembered his Floatzel's nasty bite wound. The realisation that he'd forgotten about it so quickly, and that he might even have gone chasing after Team Galactic before healing his Pokémon, was quite a sobering thought. He slowed down at once and followed Lucas to the nearest Pokémon Centre, which just so happened to be the one at which Dawn should have been sleeping the previous night, if she had gotten off the bus where she was supposed to.

The three trainers walked into the Pokémon Centre and heads immediately turned. Dawn was still in her Team Galactic uniform, with a couple of Pokémon books in her hand and an energetic Shinx springing around at her feet. When she realised that people were staring, she raised a hand to her head and took off the blue-green wig that Jupiter had made her wear, thinking that this was the only thing making her stand out. When people continued to glare, she nervously wandered to the counter where Barry and Lucas had already given their Pokémon to Nurse Joy.

"I think my Floatzel might need a strong Antidote, too," Barry was saying.

"No problem, I'll get right on that."

The nurse disappeared into the room behind the counter. When she came back, she happened to glance at Dawn, who immediately recognised her – or so she thought. "Hey, didn't I meet you yesterday?" Dawn asked. "That's weird. This place looks sort of familiar, but I don't think I've ever been here."

"Oh." Nurse Joy smiled faintly. "You must be a new trainer."

"Every Pokémon Centre has a Nurse Joy," Lucas explained. "They're all part of the same family."

"Say..." Joy was taking a closer look at Dawn; she had obviously noticed her uniform. "You're not really part of Team Galactic, are you?"

"Uh...I was, but then I – "

"No way!" Barry interrupted with a loud, forced laugh. "It's just a costume! We, um...we're going to a party."

"Oh." Nurse Joy nodded slowly. The fake smile plastered on this boy's face made it pretty clear that he was fibbing, but she decided to play along: the trio were only young, and Joy wasn't in the mood for trouble. "You know, you really should have told your friend to pick a different costume. We've had a lot of trouble around here since Team Galactic set up that horrible place down the road."

The healing machine gave a gentle beep and Nurse Joy went to retrieve its patients, glad of the distraction. She returned to the counter, first with Lucas's Pokémon, then with Barry's, along with a white packet bearing a red cross on the front. "There's your Antidote. Be sure to spray it on your Floatzel's wound before you even _think_ about using it in battle again!"

"It'll be okay, though, won't it?" Barry asked as he fixed his Pokéballs back onto his belt.

"The machine would have given a read-out if there was anything seriously wrong with Floatzel," Joy replied reassuringly. "Enjoy your party!"

"What party? Oh. Thanks!"

With a blush, Barry put the Antidote in his bag and raced out of the door with Dawn and Lucas close behind him. When they were a safe distance away from the Pokémon Centre, Lucas began to snicker. "You do look funny, dressed like that," he said to Dawn.

"Stop reminding me!" she complained, swatting Lucas with her wig. He snatched it out of her hand and threw it into a nearby trash can. "Hey!"

"You won't be needing that anymore. Come to think of it...where are your regular clothes? And you must have had a bag, right?"

"They're all back at that other place," Dawn replied, pointing back over her shoulder with her thumb.

"Don't even think about it! We're not going back for some clothes!" Barry was rummaging through his bag and soon pulled out another trainer belt bearing six Pokéballs. He held it out to Dawn. "This is yours."

"No – "

"Yes, it is!" Barry almost yelled. He ruffled his own blonde curls in frustration. "Sorry. This is gonna be hard work."

Dawn continued to shake her head, but she took the belt and fastened it around her waist, frowning and adjusting it several times. "It's heavy," she complained. "Are there Pokémon in all of these?"

"Four." Barry's gaze fell to Dawn's Shinx, still rubbing itself against its trainer's legs fondly as if it were afraid that they would be separated again. "Okay," Barry said, "here's your first recap lesson. See the Pokéball with the yellow star on it? Take it off your belt."

"Okay..." Furrowing her brow in confusion, Dawn detached the decorated Pokéball with some difficulty. "Now what?"

"Hold it towards Shinx and tell it to return."

Dawn did as she was told, but her cynical tone of voice made it clear that she wasn't expecting anything to happen. She gasped when the Pokémon vanished into the Pokéball. "Neat!" she exclaimed. "But how do I get it out again? It's cute. I like having it with me."

Sensing that Barry was getting too impatient to give a civil reply, Lucas decided to answer this one. "You can throw the Pokéball – "

"Just _throw_ it?"

"Yeah. Doesn't matter how or where; it'll return to you. Or you can press that button on the front. Or you can even just tell the Pokémon to come out, and it should listen to you."

"But not _now_!" Barry cried, flapping his arms dramatically. "It needs to stay in its Pokéball! Put it back on your belt, Dawn. Now, how are we getting to Mount Coronet?"

"Flying!" Lucas answered. "How else?"

"But there's three of us, and only two Pokémon that can carry us. Dawn's Noctowl has gone AWOL."

"Then Dawn will just have to fly with one of us. My Pidgeot's a bit bigger than your Staraptor, Barry."

"But...!" Barry was about to complain that Dawn had been_ his_ friend for much longer, but he realised what a silly argument that would have been. With a frown, he released his Staraptor and jumped onto its back. "Just make sure she reads those books, Lucas!"

"Right, right. Pidgeot, we need you!" Dawn shrank back a little when she saw Lucas's fierce-looking Pidgeot, but Lucas ushered her forward. "Go on."

Dawn awkwardly climbed onto the bird Pokémon's back and Lucas followed, sitting directly behind her. She squeaked in fear as the bird Pokémon rose to its feet: clutching the books to her chest, she only had one hand with which to steady herself. When Pidgeot took off, she reached back to grab Lucas's hand for support. Although he felt a little strange, he leaned forward and put his hands closer to Dawn's legs, making it easier for her to hold onto him if she wanted to. Barry was already ahead of them, and Lucas found himself thinking, _I hope he doesn't look back and get the wrong idea._ Then again, Barry had only talked about Dawn as a friend and nothing more. What reason would he have to be jealous? Lucas cringed. _Not a good time to be thinking about stuff like this._

"Pidgeot, follow Staraptor. If we get separated, just head west." Pidgeot cawed its understanding and flexed it wings, soaring even higher. Dawn felt her stomach lurch violently. "I think you'd better get reading, Dawn," Lucas added with a sigh.

Before she could even think about navigating through what was inside the books, Dawn had to find a practical way to actually _read_ them. She fidgeted a lot and almost dropped them both, but finally tucked one under her leg while she flipped through the other with just one hand – she was still clinging to Lucas with the other. Several times, she took a breath to ask a question, but decided against it each time, thinking that she wouldn't even understand the answer. The books that Barry had hurriedly chosen weren't for beginners. One was just a lengthy list of Pokémon techniques, their types and their effects. Dawn attempted to memorise some of them, but there were far too many. She switched to the other book and found that this one made more sense, with its explanations on different types of Pokémon and their various strengths and weaknesses. She could even say that it made for interesting reading – and a welcome distraction from the knowledge that she wasn't on solid ground. She was so engrossed that she wasn't even aware of time passing until Lucas broke the silence with a whisper.

"There it is. Right ahead."

Dawn raised her head and frowned at the burning sensation in the back of her neck, the result of looking down for far too long. She had already relaxed her grip on Lucas's sleeve – now she let go, just for a moment, to rub the painful spot. Gazing ahead, she saw Mount Coronet looming in the distance. It was even bigger than she'd expected, making the other mountains that surrounded it look like tiny Digletts in comparison. Its top was invisible, nested deep in the clouds.

"Have you been reading this whole time?" Lucas asked.

"I must have been. I don't think I fell asleep."

"You'd know if you did," Lucas said with a laugh. Glancing over Pidgeot's shoulder at the jagged mountains below, Dawn realised what he meant and she shuddered. Fortunately, Lucas changed the subject. "So, do you think you're ready for a Pokémon battle?"

"I think I understand how it works," Dawn replied, "but...how am I supposed to know which Pokémon I have on my belt? Or what their types are? Or what they can do?"

_I guess she's not ready for a Pokémon battle_, Lucas said silently. "I'm sure we'll have time to find out when we land," he muttered, although he doubted it – up ahead, Barry and Staraptor must have been drawing close to their destination now, and Lucas knew that Barry wouldn't want to hang around.

The air was becoming thick with low-lying clouds and fog, making it increasingly difficult to see. Dawn had given up on reading and was concentrating on trying to keep warm, while Lucas was beginning to panic: Barry's Staraptor was suddenly nowhere to be found.

"I know you can't use Defog while we're on your back, Pidgeot," he said. "We'll have to drop altitude to get our bearings."

Dawn felt her stomach turn over again, in the opposite direction this time, as Pidgeot began a gentle descent. As they moved out of the worst of the fog, an outcropping of rock appeared in front of them, too close for comfort, and the bird Pokémon had to swerve to avoid it. Dawn tightened her grip on Lucas's arm. "Where are we supposed to land?"

"Hey! Up here!"

Lucas recognised Barry's voice and looked around, trying to pinpoint his friend. He was looking for someone on the back of a Staraptor, but when his gaze finally found Barry, he saw that he had reached a landing place already: he was waving from a snow-covered ledge a little further up the cliff. Without being told, Pidgeot flapped its wings as hard as it could, fighting its exhaustion and rising steadily until it was at the same level as Barry's landing ledge. Dawn slid onto the ledge with Barry's help, followed by Lucas.

"Whew," Lucas breathed, brushing a sheen of nervous sweat from under the rim of his cap. "I don't want to do that again any time soon." Seen as he spent most of his time travelling with Professor Rowan, it was rare that he had to rely on his Pidgeot, and he had never had to make such a risky landing.

"Pidgeot must be so tired!" Dawn said, gazing at the bird Pokémon in concern.

"Well, it can rest now." Lucas withdrew Pidgeot straight out of the air.

"My Staraptor's pretty worn out, too," Barry said. "I guess that's two Pokémon who won't be battling. Dawn?" He looked at her expectantly.

"She needs to know what Pokémon she has."

"What?" Barry stared at Lucas as if he'd just asked him a riddle. "Well, how am I meant to know?"

"I thought you'd battled her before."

"Sure, but I don't remember every single Pokémon I battle against! I know she's got a Prinplup – unless it's evolved since then – "

Dawn groaned. "Do I really need to battle? I've got such a bad feeling about this."

"You can be our last resort," Barry said with a false smile of confidence. He patted Dawn on the back, a little too hard. "Come on, I found a way in." He pointed at the sheer cliff face. There was a cavern in its side – a dark and unwelcoming one. "It's either that," Barry said, sensing his friends' lack of enthusiasm, "or we start climbing."

Dawn took just one look at the hostile cliff face that rose vertically into the air, disappearing into the clouds, before she made a hasty beeline for the cavern. "Scary cave, here we go!" She halted at the entrance. "Who's got some light?"

"Maybe your Shinx can help us," Lucas replied. "It's an electric-type Pokémon."

Dawn pressed the button on the front of Shinx's Pokéball and watched in awe as the Pokémon materialised at her feet. She bent down to ruffle its fur. "Hey, Shinx. We could use some illumination here."

The star-shaped end of Shinx's tail began to glow until it was giving out as much light as an average torch. Holding its tail aloft over its back, it scampered into the cave and used its sharp claws to climb onto a high rock. The extra height allowed the light from its tail to shine even further.

"Hey, Pokémon are amazing!" Dawn remarked as she ventured into the cavern. Her voice bounced off the stone walls repeatedly. "Come on, what are you waiting for?"

Just like Dawn's comment, Barry's sigh echoed throughout the cavern as he began to follow his friend. Lucas glanced at him. "What's wrong with you?"

"I'll never get used to this," Barry replied gloomily.

"What?"

"Dawn."

"Why not?" Lucas watched the girl as she pressed on through the cave with Shinx following her closely, always staying on a high ledge. The light bounced along with it as it moved, creating an effect that was somewhat dizzying. "She seems sort of happy, don't you think?"

"That's 'cos she has _no idea_ what's going on," Barry whispered under his breath.

Lucas was about to tell Barry that he was being a little harsh, but he supposed that it was true. And Dawn was getting a little far ahead, taking Shinx and its light with her. The two boys began to quicken their pace, worried that they were going to end up stranded in the dark if they didn't catch up. Then they heard something that made their blood run cold. It was the sound of a girl's shriek. They automatically yelled Dawn's name in unison and broke into a sprint. The first thing they encountered was a switched-on flashlight rolling anonymously along the floor of the cave, while the glow from Shinx's tail was darting around wildly like a moving strobe light a few metres away. When Lucas grabbed the torch and focused its beam, he saw Dawn struggling against someone, her hands pinned behind her back. Shinx had its teeth buried in the tail of a familiar-looking leather coat.

"Hey...I think it's that detective guy!"

"Let go of her!" Barry shouted at once. "She's not one of them!"

In desperation, Lucas shone the flashlight straight into the face of Dawn's captor. He was right: they'd somehow crossed paths with Looker again. "The two strong trainers?" Looker asked, squinting in the intense light. "But what do you say? This isn't a member of the Team Galactic? But, her uniform – "

"I know. It's a long story, but she's a friend of ours." Barry remembered that Looker was working for the International Police and a chill danced over his skin as he imagined Dawn being dragged off to prison. "You gotta believe me! She's not with Team Galactic!"

"He's right," Lucas added. "Don't you remember Dawn? She was with me when I first met you in Jubilife City. And again, in Veilstone City, that time when I called you a weirdo."

"Of course." Looking decidedly puzzled, Looker let go of Dawn but kept a hand on her shoulder while he studied her face. Despite her indignant expression, he couldn't deny that he recognised her. "Forgive me, my friend. Your dress reminds me of the Team Galactic crooks."

"Do I know you?" Dawn grumbled, flexing her sore wrists.

Thinking that she was only being uppity in response to what he had just done, Looker smiled half-heartedly. "I hope that you will forgive me soon. But for now, we must continue this chase." Sensing that something was hanging from the hem of his jacket, he turned and gazed down at Dawn's Shinx. "But first," he said, in that same hushed tone of voice of his, "I humbly ask that you remove your Pokémon from my coat."


End file.
